The Replacement
by CRose
Summary: Ranma vs Ryoko Round 3!
1. First stop

How does one go about describing this story, well...it came to me on whim as I was working on several other works. As usual it is a Sailor Moon/Ranma crossover, but it will also have little elements of other fan fics in it as well. The prologue is an example of a quick side trip to the Tenchi Universe, it was meant to be a one shot, but I decided to exspand it a bit when I found I had hit a wall. The SM aspects will be addressed in chapter 1, the prologue can be considered Ranma's first step on a long journey.

For once I am setting this only a few months after Ranma learned the Hiryu Shoten Ha technique, and the Sailors are during the Galaxia episodes just after Mamoru runs off to America to study. I will be making an attempt to run through several of the Sailor Stars Episodes just to give this some continuity, I'll probably grab a few episode synopsis off some site somewhere. I do know one thing, this will be a whole lot different than the original series.

The Replacement  
Prologue-That's one way to leave it all behind  
By C. Rose  
(c)2001

The trajectory was almost perfect as Ranma hurtled through the sky, he noted his direction and figured that he would land farther away than she ever had in the past. Akane's mallet had caught him by surprise this time, he had no clue what he had done to set her off. He had been sparing with the old man when out of no where she just up and hit him like a giant golf ball and sent him into the beyond. Why he had to put up with this he didn't quite know, but she was beginning to get on his nerves. There was only so much he was willing to take from her no matter what his father and Mr. Tendo said, and Akane was pushing his patients to its limits.

Ranma reached the top of his arc and began to fall, though it hurt to do so, he twisted around in the air so that he could take in the landscape below. He noticed the lake and woods right off the bat, then took in some hills and in the distance that defined the rest of the valley he was heading for. He managed to angle his body towards the lake below him and let off a sigh as he realized that he was yet again on his way to transforming into to his girl form. Like a missile he hit the water and plunged into the depths until he came to a slow stop and floated lazily. He felt his body tingle as he shifted into her female body and her point of view changed in certain ways, stupid curse she thought. Her bright red hair floating around her like a halo as she swam to the surface.

She surfaced and gasped for air and cussed her luck for the millionth time this month alone, what had she done to even deserve such a life.  
She tried to follow honor, keep her word and protect the weak as was a martial artists duty just like her father had taught her. She knew that the old man was the main reason for his problems, but he just couldn't bring herself leave him, he was her father after all. Though it would solve a lot of his problems. Ranma leaned back and floated, his female body proving yet again that it had this strange buoyancy in deep water as her breasts wobbled along the surface. Stupid curse, at least the old man got one as well or this would have been even worse.

What to do, she thought, it was one of those rare moments of peace that she got whenever she was to far away for the others to find her and chase her. The only one she needed to worry about was Ryoga since he could turn a corner in Nerima and end up in Hawaii 10 minutes later and not even get his feet wet. Ranma figured that she had been at the Tendo's for 5 months now and his nerves were getting frayed with the constant state of battle and protecting those around him from the damage her enemies could cause in their mindless attacks on him. She couldn't seem to go 4 hours without one of his enemies or fiancee's showing up to bother him in one form or another only to have Akane, his 'friend' hit him out of the city for some imagined slight or strange conclusion.

Spinning over, Ranma kicked her legs and swam to shore about a few hundred feet away. She needed to think and she had to do it now, it was something the old man would have stopped her from doing in his endless quest to fill his stomach Ranma realized, as she slowly swam to shore her mind recalled all the events in her life dealing with the old man and he realized that he couldn't recall one instance where he had treated her like a father treats one of their children. The old man had always placed his stomach first and her second as demonstrated by the number of times she had been sold for food or engaged against her will.  
Ranma felt a mind numbing depression hit her as she trudged her way out of the lake and took in the trees and mountain in the distance.

Where the hell was she? Ranma shrugged and decided to camp out for the rest of the day and go back to the dojo tomorrow. She would have to put her survival skills to use but 10 years on the road had taught her well and about 20 minutes later she had found a small glen that would work perfectly, had dug a small fire pit, gathered wood, and set up a small fire. Lighting it with Ki was child's play and since it was still several hours until night came, she set about practicing a number of kata that she had been developing in her spare time. Cologne's training in Special Attacks like the Chestnut Fist and Hiryu Shoten Ha techniques has given her a number of ideas. The only problem was that she needed time to develop them and every time she went on a training mission everyone would end up following her.

Ranma got into a fighting stance and looked deep with in her mind and soon found and pushed her aura into the visible spectrum. She slowly went into her first kata and let her mind probe her surroundings looking for any sign of a threat since she didn't know where she was. Over the next few hours she began to move faster and faster until she was moving in a blur and jumping 30 to 40 feet into the air and throwing hundreds of punches and kick per second. At the same time she focused on the Chestnut Fist technique and let it fill her body as she moved, glowing like a small star. Images and ideas were flowing through her mind as she moved and her imagination was finding numerous ways to use each of the new techniques she had been exposed to, even Ryoga's Breaking Point technique.

The sun was going down by the time she stopped and wiped the sweat off her forehead, she realized that she hadn't had a work out that intense since her fight with Taro a few weeks ago. These new techniques were going to come in handy and she had thought up several more as she practiced, it would only be a matter of time before she had a whole new set of moves down. Let her enemies beware she giggled to herself,  
Cologne had taught her in certain ways that allowed her to make up her own moves. Each had required her to do things one wouldn't have to do in normal life and that in itself made her think of different ways to train for various effects. Suddenly Ranma stopped and looked around, there was someone in the area heading right for her location.

She powered down to a somewhat normal level and began to work her way through her revised version of the Hiryu Shoten Ha, her camp fire helped immensely as a source of heat, though she was trying to find a way to use it with out the stupid spiral needed to prime the moved. At the same time she 'watched' as the presence approached her location stealthily,  
she sense skill and wisdom in the intruder as she probed his aura in a way that he wouldn't notice. He was very powerful and hid it well, Ranma almost didn't notice the tiny signs that the intruder hid with ease. Out of the corner of her eye she saw an old man in a Shinto robe step out of the trees and look her over. He took one look at her and blushed.

Ranma glanced down, earlier she had used the fire to dry her clothing but had only put on her pants and black muscle shirt. She had been working out for hours now and was covered in sweat and her clothing was sticking to her like a second skin and was displaying her overly endowed body in a very provocative way. She was breathing a little hard and this was making her breasts heave, it was enough to drive Hopposai mad with lust, so Ranma figured it would have a similar effect on most men. She stopped, cussed under her breath and glanced at the old man, he looked to be in his late seventies, had a pair of glasses, and had long gray hair.

"Hello." Ranma said.

"Good evening young lady, can I ask why you have set a fire in a sacred forest?"

"Huh?"

"I take it you don't know where you are?"

"Nope, I was planning to wait for tomorrow to find out."

The old man nodded. "My name is Misaki Katsuhito, these lands, the lake, and the house on the other side of that hill over there all belong to the shrine."

"I didn't know, I had assumed that I was alone out here and I didn't see any signs of life in any direction. My name is Saotome Ranma by the way."

"The lake makes it way around the hill and that is where we have the house set up and the shrine beyond that."

"Oh, is there a motel or an empty lot I can use for the night then, I won't be leaving until tomorrow and I need a place to sleep."

"If you want you can stay at the house with my grandson, we have the room and would be glad to help you out for the night at least."

Ranma shrugged, her senses were picking one thing about this old man while her eyes were telling her something else. He had the most powerful aura she had ever encountered, it was beyond her comprehension, it was stronger than even Cologne and Hopposai put together. Her curiosity was peaked and she decided to accept and maybe find out just why this old guy was this strong. "I would like that, thank you."

They walked around the lake and Ranma soon found that she had been less than a mile from a somewhat large house. She counted 9 rooms on the two and half floors, it was a plain white and had a somewhat Americanized feel to it. She briefly recalled the 6 months she had been in America training with some of the Army's Rangers and Seal companies, that had been a lot of fun, not. The shrine, that she could see in the distance,  
was of average Japanese building structures and blended in with the woods around it. As they got closer to the house she soon noticed the fragrant odor of food being cooked and her stomach grumbled loudly.

"You may eat dinner with us if you like." said Katsuhito, smiling at the redheads embarrassed expression.

"I don't want to impose on you." Ranma said.

"Not to worry, Sassami always makes more than we need and we were kind of expecting you to eat with us."

"You were?"

"Oh yes, you see we knew you were out there several hours ago. You weren't making any gestures to come to us so we figured you were just passing through, but when you set up that fire and looked like you were going to stay for awhile we decided to invite you in for supper."

"You don't say?"

"Washuu is a scientist and she spotted you just a little after you arrived and has been quietly watching you on her monitors ever since."

"I must be getting sloppy, I usually notice when I am being watched."

"She is a scientist and uses machines to do so."

"Like cameras and such?"

"Yes."

"That explains a lot, I wasn't exactly looking around for high tech toys."

"Washuu prides herself on her skills." Katsuhito said cryptically.

Once inside Ranma noticed that it was a normal looking house, except that there was a giant TV that took up an entire wall near the stairs.  
The smell of food was now very noticeable and her stomach grumbled again. Everyone looked at her and she blushed a little, there was a short girl with hair as red as hers already sitting at the table and seemed to be typing on a computer made of light, Ranma shrugged this off, she had seen weirder, Taro came to mind. There were two girls watching the large TV, one had light purple hair and was dressed in very expensive clothing. The other was very tall and was lounging along the back of the couch and looked a little like a human c-c-c-ca-feline, and had hair similar to the red head except that it was...green? Ranma shrugged, who was she to make comments on one's hair color?

"Sit down over there." Pointed the old man.

Ranma made her way over to the table and sat down just as a young girl with blue hair and a boy walked out of the kitchen and sat down several platters worth of food. Everyone was giving her a strange look and Ranma realized that she hadn't been introduced to everyone, Katsuhito realized this and quickly make sure everyone knew who was who. Ranma noticed that there was something about Ryoko that set her on edge, but she couldn't up her finger on what exactly. The by had been introduced as Masaki Tenchi and Ranma noticed almost immediately that every girl in the room was obviously trying to win the boy over. She almost giggled when she realized at just how close they were to her own life, especially when a few minutes into dinner Ayeka and Ryoko had begun to argue, jumped to their feet, and attacked each other.

This had been building, Ranma realized, she grabbed her plate and her arm blurred as she dodged the resulting explosion. She noted that the others at the table didn't react very much as they too dodged out of the way. Ranma vanished from sight just seconds before the chair she had bee sitting in was blasted from existence. While still eating, Saotome style, she flipped in the air and planted her foot in Ryoko's face and used it for a spring board to land on the other side of the room.

Ryoko screeched in surprise and fell back on her butt just as Ayeka's little logs formed and fired off a volley of electricity that just caught the cat like girl, she was thrown through a nearby wall in a hail of destruction. Ranma was impressed, even Shampoo had never shown this kind of power and even she would have been hard pressed to stand against it. She just finished her food and sat the plate down even as Ryoko was crawling to her feet. Then the worst thing possible happened, Ranma was hit from the side and thrown to the floor by the boy. They landed hard and Ranma had the air knocked out of her and she had to lay there for several seconds gasping for air. At the same time her mind was cataloging several pieces of information.

1. There was a boy's face buried in her breasts 2. His hands were holding her to the floor 3. See item 1.  
4. There were various screams of outrage from the girls around her and they were focusing on her.  
5. There was something she didn't want to know about pressing against her inner thigh.  
6. See item 1.

Ranma's vision went red and she lifted her leg to knee the Pervert in the balls and used her full strength to throw him clear through the wall after Ryoko. Her reflexes kicked in and she dodged just as a sword of light flashed through were her head had been. She spun to her feet and kicked Ryoko in the head, grabbed her, and tossed her at the other girl and sent both into the wall across the room. Gasping for air Ranma crouched down as her rage died down to manageable levels.

There were shocked looks on everyone's faces as they gazed at her and the two girls struggling with each other across the room. Gasping for air Ranma straightened up and glared at her hosts for several seconds before jumping out the hole in the wall, rebounding off the ground and to the trees and out of sight in seconds, all the time cursing under her breath and wondering why her life had to be a living hell.

"Wait!" Yelled Katsuhito, but the girl ignored him as she vanished from sight in a matter of seconds. She was heading for the shrine so he headed out after her and stopped only long enough to see if Tenchi was alright before running after the girl. He had met only a hand full of people who could defeat either Ryoko or Ayeka and they were all off worlders. Over the years he had been introduced to this worlds Martial Arts and he recognized a master when she saw one, even if she wasn't yet even 20 years old. She was displaying a lot of power and he had wanted to talk to her before she left just to get to know her a little better,  
besides she was cute.

Ranma soon found some steps leading up one of the hills and landed on them to take a break, she was far enough away from the house. Why had they suddenly attacked her? That boy had groped her too, at least he had paid for doing that. She had noticed within days of being cursed that she could turn heads and had experimented with it a little while the Panda was off scamming them a meal or two and Shampoo was off their tail for awhile. Ranma wasn't as dense as she like to let on and that had helped her in the last few months.

When it came to Martial Arts Ranma knew that she was one of the best,  
she had been training for years at a level that few could maintain, let alone survive. There had been one insane technique after another, day after day for years. She had to adapt to the stress or break and a Saotome does not break under a little pressure. So she had started to look at life as one long Martial Arts training game that her idiot father had devised for her. First had been Ryoga, then Ukyo, Shampoo,  
Moose, Ryu, Taro, Cologne, Hopposai and a whole host of minor fights and enemies, some remembered and some not. For the last 4 years all her fathers mistakes had been catching up with him and in turn had been placed at her feet to solve, this had led to one long war, daily fights,  
and people trying to kill him for the most asinine reasons.

Moments of peace were few, very few, and now this. Just when she had felt like relaxing a little a couple of complete strangers had attacked her like a couple of dogs. She hadn't minded the fight, so much as the assumption that they would even think anything bad about her. Then that Pervert...grrrrr...Ranma had shown him what happens to those who thought they could get a free feel. Her hands gripped the edge of the stone step and crushed it like cardboard. Why her? Even before the curse her life had been weird, now it was worse and it looked like it wasn't about to get better any time soon.

Her curse, Panda no Baka, she had grown used to it and had been learning about it on the sly. Kasumi was a house wife in every sense of the word but one and had quite a collection of magazines floating around the house. Ranma had been reading through them late at night when she had a chance to, and even during the day when she was at school a few times and had concealed it inside a martial arts magazine. There was a little bit of everything in there that she would ever have needed to know, fashion, games, information on female functions and problems. The articles on teen pregnancies and yeast infections had made her blood run cold, especially on what caused them, shudder.

Of course the articles on simple hand to hand combat had been a surprise with their step by step movements. Ranma stood up, stretched and wondered what she was going to do now, she had no intention of going back to that mad house, she had enough problems as it was without even more enemies. Her eyes went wide at the sight of the old man standing less than 10 feet from her. He looked a little flustered and nervous,  
though it was a little hard to tell if one didn't know what to look for.

"What do you want old man, wasn't trying to kill me more than enough"  
Ranma snarled, her vision going red again.

"Calm down, I didn't expect that to happen."

"Yeah right, those two do that so often that the rest of you barely even reacted to it. Most of you stayed calm even after the table was reduced to splinters, as if it was a common occurrence. Then that boy had to try and grope me!" Ranma yelled.

"He was trying to shield you from the explosive damage Ryoko was throwing around."

"Oh please, after the explosion had already gone off? More like using it as an excuse to cop a feel."

"I want to fix this mess, please let me do something."

"Just stay away from me, my life is a living hell and I don't need anyone else trying to make it worse." Ranma sighed.

"Tell you what, you can stay up at the shrine tonight I'll help you find your way back to your home tomorrow."

Ranma considered it and nodded, she bounced up the steps, over the old man, and was soon standing in front of the shrine. It was old, very old and showed every year of its age. She waited for the old man to arrive they went inside a few minutes later. He showed her an unused room with a small mat for a bed, Katsuhito explained that he usually stayed up here when he could since it was quite and didn't have two girls trying to kill each other every few hours. Ranma agreed and silently decided that it wasn't the old man's fault and stopped giving him the evil eye,  
much to his relief.

"Can we talk for a few minutes young lady?"

Ranma shrugged, it was till a little early to go to bed and there were a few question she wanted to as too. "Go ahead."

"I noticed earlier that you handled Ayeka and Ryoko very well, what style do you practice?"

"Anything Goes Martial Arts."

"I've heard of it, even out here your school is infamous in its reputation."

"Oh?"

"Oh yes, Hopposai had a reputation among the old crowd and his school is well know for its effectiveness."

"The old leach is a pain in the ass, especially for us girls."

"I had heard he was finally dead, there was a party thrown to celebrate the occasion."

"He is still around stealing underwear and living off girls chi like a vampire, he is a major pain in the ass."

"Alive...that is not good news."

"Heh, you should have seen my pop's and Mr. Tendo's reaction to the news, the old pervert has them completely broken in. They will do anything he says, bow to him and beg him for anything. They are pathetic."

"Old Hopposai had a couple of students years ago, a...Genma and Soun if I remember correctly. They swung through the valley here and stole a number of scrolls and weapons from my collection."

"That sounds like them alright, though I'm surprised they didn't take some girls underwear while they were here..."

"Tenchi's mother was about 15 at the time, they took every pair she owned, even those that were in the laundry or hampers. She complained about it for weeks."

"Ha!" Ranma laughed and wondered what the her father would have to say about it. "Well the old pervert is hanging around Nerima now a days and has forced his way into my house and hijacked the attic for his own.  
There are numerous traps, panties, and bombs hidden all over the place,  
stop by and challenge him sometime. I try to beat the hell out of him whenever I can, but he just gets back up, grabs some girl's chest and laughs the beatings off like they were nothing."

"You must be pretty good to actually beat him up, even I would be pressing myself to stand against him."

"I am the best." Ranma said arrogantly.

"Well your cute, but I have seen better fighters." Katsuhito said.

"What!?" Ranma yelled.

"Your a good fighter, but Anything Goes has number of weaknesses that are easy to exploit if one knows what they are doing."

"Yeah right, the hole point of the style is to use the best moves of all the different systems just to neutralize any flaws that might exist." Ranma yelled.

"Oh please, even Hopposai has the same weakness and you do too if what I am hearing is correct." Katsuhito said with a smirk.

"Bullshit! I challenge you to prove you wrong!"

"And if you lose?"

"I won't lose!" She was seeing red again.

A few minutes later they were outside, Katsuhito was holding a boken and was a little put off by the red headed girl rolling on the ground laughing at him. He snorted and launched forward, sword moving in a dizzying series of offensive strikes. Ranma rolled and twisted out of the way, easily blocking the boken with her wrists and launching a counter offensive. This was all Katsuhito needed and he simply blurred as he struck Ranma from hundreds of different angles, catching her completely by surprise.

Ranma landed on her back and rolled to her feet, her shirt cut in several places and her wrists were bruised. The old man was better than Kuno on every level, he was a worthy challenge even if he used a stick instead of his hands. Ranma acknowledged him as a serous opponent, she launched forward..."Kach Tenshin Amaguriken!" she screamed. Katsuhito's eyes narrowed and his boken blurred, it was soon apparent to Ranma that he was blocking her technique with the boken. Katsuhito twisted his wrist and slammed the point of the boken into Ranma's stomach. It hit with the force of a car and sent her flying across the yard to crash into a tree.

She groaned as tears rolled down her cheeks, a grin plastered to her face as she stood up. The old geezer was good, better than anyone she had ever met in her life. Smirking she stood proud and let her aura burst forth and the whole area took on a blue tint under her show of power, the old man crouched down and didn't take his eyes off her.  
Ranma's hands suddenly thrust forward..."M"ko Takabisha!" and fired of a large burst of KI.

Katsuhito's eyes widened, he hadn't expected a girl this young to be able to do this! Reflexes took over and his own aura flared, the boken spun like a propeller in front of him creating a barrier for Ranma's shot to hit. He sword sliced the Ki energy to ribbons that landed all around him and let off little puff like explosions. He decided to up the level of the game, if Ranma wanted to so would he. His sword began to glow as it spun and launched a spinning column of fire at her.

Ranma tapped the Soul of Ice technique pushed her aura to it's limits..."Hiry Sh"ten Ha!" She screamed and pounced into the fire storm and the world turned white as the earth trembled and all that contained fire explode upwards in a giant column of destruction. Ranma's face paled as she realized her mistake even as the explosion lifted her off the ground and lifted her into the sky. "Shit!!"

Ranma awoke to a strange sight, there was a large machine over her head and it was running down the length of her body, the light it was emitting was illuminating her...naked...body. She looked around and noticed that she was inside some kind of tube and that she was strapped down. Reaching out with her mind she accessed her Ki to increase her strength and gasped when she couldn't even touch it. She struggled for several minutes, the large machine went over her body several times while she did this.

She gave a start when it stopped and the end of the tube near her feet opened up and the table she was laying on moved her out of the tube. The table stopped and scooted across a room that looked like something out of Star Trek or Star Wars. There were computers and giant machines all over the place, beeping and humming in odd patterns.

"Why hello there!" Said a very scary voice, female and nowhere in sight.

"Let me go!" Ranma yelled.

The voice laughed, and evil laugh. "Not just yet my little test subject. I'm not done with you yet."

"I said let me go!"

"Hold your horses, you would not believe the information my scans are getting of you. Your energy readings are off the scale for normal humans and I am detecting large amounts of magic permeating your entire body...etc.etc.etc..."

This was to much like school Ranma thought as the evil female voice proceeded to detail most of the effects of her curse, his body, and a number of things she didn't want to know. Ranma struggled some more and found it useless and tried to access her Ki again, this time she reached deep and after several minutes managed to touch it, her body flared with blue light and Ranma let of a pulse of unfocused Ki.

It destroyed the table she was on and she jumped to her feet and ran for a door across the room. A blast of energy hit just inches from her feet and she kicked the door into splinters and continued to fly forward into high heat and some trees. She landed hard and rolled forward several times before she fell off the edge of something. She had just enough time to see that she had fallen of the edge of an artificial cliff and was falling towards what looked like a giant bath tub, there were a couple of girls watching her fall.

Ranma hit hard, sending up a wave of hot water that swamped both girls.  
Her body tingled and she turned back into a man, a naked man in a hot tub with two naked girls just a few feet away. He cursed his life and wondered what kind of punishment this would cause. He reached the bottom of the deep end and slammed his fingers into the floor and held on for dear life as he opened his eyes and looked around for an escape rout. He saw two very well endowed naked girls heading his way and nearly fainted, it was Ayeka and Ryoko and they looked a little confused. He hoped that they couldn't see that he was currently a man. the water was crystal clear though and he knew he was in trouble when Ryoko began to glow and fired a blast of energy at him.

He reacted instantly, pushed off the floor of the tub and launched himself towards the surface. Once in the open air he flipped and landed at the edge of the tub, taking in his surroundings in an instant. Ayeka was staring at him in wide eyed horror, or all his naked glory, he couldn't tell which. He shot forward and noticed a small water fall about a hundred yards off through the jungle like setting, he had to hide and he had to do it quickly. Suddenly the trees around him started to explode and he glanced back to see a naked Ryoko launching multiply energy attacks at him and started to maneuver from tree to tree. This only made her scream in frustration and increase the power of the blasts.

Ryoko blazed in fury as she chased the pervert across the jungle bath setting, he was fast and nimble and causing her no end of trouble.  
Though silently she had to admit he was one fine looking man and had a buns of steel and was hung even better than her beloved Tenchi, though that thought was dragged into the dregs of her mind and beaten to death.  
She had a pervert to kill and nothing was going to stop her. Her hands blazed again and she fired of dozens of shots at her cute target and grinned evilly as she saw him finally take some damage when his foot was caught in one of the explosions.

Ranma cried out and jumped for an over head branch and like Tarzan began to jump from tree to tree until he noticed that he was at the waterfall and gratefully jumped into the down pour and screamed in shock at just how cold the water really was just before slamming head first into the wall. Twin explosions hit the wall to either side of her and Ranma was thrown into the air, she landed at Ryoko's feet in a heap of naked female flesh.

"Where is he!?" Ryoko screamed just as Ayeka came running up, she had taken a few seconds to put on a robe before joining the chase.

"Ranma?!" Ayeka gasped when she saw the redhead in such a bruised and compromising position, all her goods on display for that pervert that was running about.

"She was on the wall when that pervert got away, she took a good sized blast."

"You did this to her?"

"I think she was trying to stop the pervert and attacked him, but got in the way of my blast by mistake."

"Lets get her up stairs, her clothing was destroyed in that fight she had with Katsuhito yesterday and Washuu has been treating her since then."

"Oh yeah..." Ryoko giggled, "Is the old fart still bemoaning the loss of the shrine?"

"Ryoko you insensitive whore, her and Katsuhito leveled the entire hill when their attacks set off that chain reaction."

"I know, firecracker here likes to fight like I do, down and dirty and with big explosions...who are you calling a whore, at least I know what to do when I am in bed with a man, unlike you and your 718 years of virgin hood." Ryoko said snidely.

Growl! Snarl!!

BOOOOMMMMM!!

Katsuhito looked mournfully at the total destruction of the 700 year old shrine, in all that time it had weathered fire, drought, space pirates, and demented women with sky high IQ's. In an instant of battle he had set in motion its destruction out of pride, he had never expected this. He lifted up a large timber piece that had once been apart of the roof, his mind recalled the day 700 years ago when he had cut down the tree and used it to build the shrine. Even after all this time it was still usable, to bad most of the others were good for nothing but kindling now. If this wasn't bad enough, they had managed to vaporize several metric tons of dirt as well. Washuu was as shocked at the level of destruction they had caused as he was, this much should have been impossible.

There were very few beings on this planet that could do something like this with their bare hands. This Ranma just didn't seem the type, sure she had a lot of power, but it was just human life force energy, or Ki.  
He had never heard of any techniques that could do anything like this.  
Katsuhito dropped the log with a grunt and winced as it broke into several pieces. He sighed and decided to take a break, this was going to be a major problem if he rebuilt the shrine. With Ryoko out of her prison, the shrine's main purpose had been fulfilled and was no longer needed.

"Oh well, lets see how things go from here. This Ranma was a curious girl to say the least."

Last night Washuu had been flabbergasted at what her scanners had told her about Ranma. She had body that was in better shape than an Olympic athlete, and her muscle tone was denser than stone. Washuu had been forced to use some questionable methods to take care of the girl. There were chemicals in her blood that should not have been in a normal human,  
and yet all scans said that she was. There was some kind of magical field around her that defied analyses and had baffled her super computer. Katsuhito had never seen Washuu this flustered and it was making her act stranger than normal, even Tenchi was a little worried about her.

Katsuhito weaved himself down what was left of the temple stairs and headed over to the house. His eyebrows raised just a fraction of an inch when she spotted the rather large hold off to the side of the house. The electricity and explosions that could be heard within the smoke were very recognizable and he sighed. Ayeka and Ryoko were at it again, they had leveled the house more than once with their fights, luckily Washuu had some robots that could fix any damage in a matter of hours.

"Hiry Sh"ten Ha!" Screamed an all to familliar voice from with in the storm of destruction.

Katsuhito gaped as everything with in the crater began to spin and rise into the air. This suddenly formed into a giant dragon headed tornado that seemed to be roaring to the heavens. His eyes spotted Ranma at the center of the massive thing as Ayeka and Ryoko were gabbed by the tornado and lifted into the sky, but Katsuhito wasn't to worried since both girls could fly if they needed to. He suddenly realized that this was the same move that she had used on him when they had destroyed the shrine, only a little different in how it was executed. This was something that a normal human was not supposed to know how to do, so how was she accomplishing it?

Ranma watched the tornado for a few minutes before walking out of it,  
she looked like she had been a war. She was covered in busies and cuts,  
her hair was a mess, and she looked totally pissed off. Katsuhito walked over to her and looked her over, his glasses fogging just a little. "Are you all right?"

"I will be once people stop using me as a shield or practice dummy,  
those two started to fight while we were in that strange bathroom of theirs and forgot about me. I must have been blasted a dozen times before I was able to even think straight, but I showed them."

"I see. Did you know they could both fly?"

"No I didn't, drat all the luck."

"Did you know you were naked and that your hair is smoking?"

"No I...Eppp!" Ranma blushed and covered herself up as best she could,  
she had totally forgotten she had no clothing.

Katsuhito laughed and yelled to the house. "Sassami! Could you find something for Ranma to wheare?"

"Hai!" Came the faint yell.

Ranma blushed and bounced into the house, through the upper story window. Unfortunately Tenchi was in his room at the time and fainted at the sight of a well endowed (natural) red head landing on his bed. His eyes bugged out, blood trickled out, and down he went. Ranma cursed under her breath and hopped off the bed, sized the boy up. A quick look around the room revealed all she needed, a pair of black jogging pants and a gray t-shirt that was a little small. Her large breasts were very visible and Ranma had learned over the last few months that ignoring her curse was a bad idea since no one else ever did. She appropriated the boy's school uniform coat and shrugged it on. This gave her a look she liked, now all she had to do was get the dirt, glass, plastic, and smoke out of her hair.

She looked down at the boy and growled, she hated perverts as much as Akane, but she knew when not to over react. Ranma stepped over the boy and opened the door to see the little blue haired girl walking out of a room carrying a bundle of clothing. "Its alright, I found something in her Sassami."

"Oh!" Sassami gasped and nearly fell down the stairs in shock.

Ranma surged forward and caught her before she could fall and grinned at the look of shock on the little girls face. Everything would have been fine from there if a little cabbit hadn't noticed the new girl in the house. "Myaaaai" I yelled and landed at Ranma's feet. Like a clock work robot, her head shifted downward and looked the...the

"C-C-C-CA-CA-CA-CATTTTTTTTTT!!" Ranma screamed, dropped Sassami and attached herself to the ceiling. The little girl gasped and giggled as Ranma used the ceiling clinging technique to move across the house like a spider, through several doorways and outside. Ryo-oh-Ki Myaaaying and followed the red head and phasing through walls to keep her in sight. Sassami saw a black and red blur as it vanished into the forest,  
screaming.

Getting to her feet, Sassami watched as Tenchi ducked out of his room and looked around franticly. "Sassami-chan, where did that red head go?"

"She is off playing with Ryo-oh-Ki, why?"

"She just stole some of my clothes."

"Oh my! I thought you loaned them to her, she didn't seem to like the dress I was getting for her."

"That's okay, where is she now?"

"Out in the forest."

Tenchi ran down stairs and outside just as Washuu walked out of her lab,  
she had a puzzled look on her face. She flopped down at the table and blinked a few times, but after a few minutes she stopped and gazed off into the distance, deep in thought. Sassami noticed that there was smoke wafting out of Washuu's lab an wandered over to investigate.

"What happened?"

Washuu looked up and noticed the little girl for the first time. "I have no idea, I have never seen one of Ryoko and Ayeka's fights cause this much damage. They destroyed over a third of my lab and wiped out one of my memory archives, luckilly I have back ups or we would be in a lot trouble. Then this girl I had in the lab escaped and ended up at ground zero for what ever those two did, I don't even know if she survived or not."

"Oh, the red headed girl?"

"Yeah."

"She was here a few minutes ago..."

"She was here? Where is she now?" Washuu asked excitedly, that girl was the perfect test subject, there were even some weird readings that her computes had picked up.

"She is playing with Ryo-oh-Ki out in the forest, why?"

Washuu vanished in a blur of red before Sassami could blink, she giggled again and ran after her. This was more interesting than dinner was anyway. Outside Katsuhito watched as Ayeka and Ryoko finally broke free from the tornado and plummeted into the ground head first, sending up a large plumb of dust and dirt. They were out cold and laying across each other in a very provocative fashion. He grinned and wondered what they would do when they woke up, deny it or hide it? He rushed inside and grabbed his camera, he had to immortalize this.

Ranma was walking home, it had taken her hours to lose that little demon that was out for her blood. She shuddered, stupid pops, training her in that useless technique and giving her a permanent weakness for good measure. Those...things could turn her into a raving coward or make her insane enough to lose her mind. If that wasn't bad enough, the little mutant cat had super powers. The little blood sucker could fly and jump through solid object while going for her throat, it's beady red eyes glowing with the promise of death. She shuddered again and looked around nervously, she could feel it nearby, stalking her again.

She started to run and was soon moving at a good clip when she passed a sign that said that Tokyo was over 20 miles away. Ranma skidded to a halt and hopped back to gape at the sign in shock, that little...bitch must have knocked him over 40 miles from home! Gods above, what had she done to piss her off, she couldn't even remember. She must have jumped to some weird conclusion again, sigh. I am not putting up with this any more, Ranma thought to herself.

There was a rustling of the plants off to the side and Ranma crouched down, that little demon wasn't going to get her, no way. Them sighed in relief when Tenchi stepped out. "Hi Ranma, what in the world are you doing all the way out here?" Tenchi asked, blushing as he suddenly remembered where his face had been earlier.

Ranma was about to punt the Pervert to the lake, when she saw that he was holding the little demon and it was gazing at her with those large sparkling evil eyes that seemed to be sizing her up for a blue plate special. Ranma screamed and took off again, this time heading cross country, knocking down trees as she went. Tenchi gaped as he stroked Ryo-o-Ki, she myaaaying sadly as the red head vanished.

This time Ranma didn't stop running, but kept going until she accidentally ran right off the edge of a small cliff over looking a large city. In her blind panic, Ranma squeaked and had just enough time to notice a girl curled up on the ground against the edge of the cliff,  
before plowing face first into the unforgiving ground with mighty bang of dust and dirt. Luckily Ranma had done this a time or two, and wasn't affected by the short fall, she groaned a little out of habit and crawled out of the small her shaped hole. Akane's mallet had caused her more damage than this little fall, hell her father could give out more damage.

The girl! Ranma glance around and saw her, she hadn't even moved from where she was curled up. Ranma stood up, popped her back and walked over to her, she was very thin and had the weirdest hairdo she had ever seen.  
Blonde hair done up in two large balls on top of her head with super long pony tails trailing back from there. Her hair was everywhere, but what caught Ranma's attention was the fact that she was crying her heart out.

The sight wrenched Ranma's heart out of her chest and she knelt down and drew the blonde beauty into a hug. The girl froze for a second before she latched onto Ranma and buried her face in Ranma's stomach,  
continuing to cry. This was new thing for Ranma, but was a better person today than what he had been just a year ago. That and she had been forced to watch more than one sappy girl's movie with Akane and her sisters, they were all hopeless romantics according to Kasumi. "Are you going to be alright now?"

"Th-thank you, I needed that."

"No problem, you looked liked you needed it."

The blonde looked up and blue eyes met blue, causing both of them to stare at each other in wonder. A shock of some vague recognition went down their spines and had both of them shivering. "Have we met before?"

"Not that I can remember." Ranma said, shaking her head.

"Oh...I'm Tsukino Usagi."

"Saotome Ranma of the School of Anything Goes Martial Arts."

To Be Continued...

End Note - I can hear the questions now, Tenchi? Why Tenchi? Well, this was meant to be a short story that ended with Ranma running off after Ryu-o-Ki encountered Ranma, but the Sailor Moon aspects kind of came to me and I decided to take it a little further. I have some ideas about using a Tenchi Universe Technology in this, like a Master Key and the living space ships, we'll see if I use them or not. Ranma will be heading back to the Masaki Shrine in later chapters to get things straightedned out though and get the old fart to teach him some sword play.

Quick note - I am trying to write up a funny story for once, but I am not that good at these and I need to actually think though what I am writing before I put it down on paper. So far I am getting some good ideas and I am using a couple of other stories to get the general idea of what I am doing. We'll see how things go for now, and I may get a bit hentai every now an then, but I will try to keep it to a minimum.


	2. The Curse

***********  
  
The Replacement  
  
Chapter 01- The Curse  
  
By C. Rose  
  
ertle2@msn.com  
  
(c)2001  
  
**********  
  
Usagi giggled, she had never heard anyone introduce themselves in quite that way before. "Martial arts huh?"  
  
"Yep, I'm on of the best too."  
  
"I see confidence isn't a problem."  
  
"Eh..hehehehe...pops always tells me to be the best no matter what. So  
  
what happened to get you crying like that..." Ranma stopped as her smile  
  
vanished and her eyes teared up again. 'Oh no not again.' She thought.  
  
Usagi's bottom lip started to tremble, but this time she held her tears  
  
back, the pain wasn't as bad this time. "My boyfriend dumped me again."  
  
"Again? How many times has he done this before?"  
  
"This will be the fourth time." Usagi said sadly.  
  
"Sounds like quite a loser to have hurt you so many times."  
  
"We were supposed to be together forever, by destiny."  
  
"By destiny, huh? Sounds like Destiny may have changed his mind if you  
  
ask me, no man should ever hurt his girlfriend like that." Ranma said,  
  
her inner voice was trying to get her attention, but she ignored it.  
  
"I don't know how many times I can take this happening, a little piece  
  
of my soul dies every time he does it."  
  
"Hey come on, lets go and do something to cheer you up."  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"Um...I have no idea, I don't even know where I am." Ranma said and  
  
blushed a little. Even as a girl, Ranma had to admit to herself that  
  
this Usagi was a total babe. Even with that weird hairstyle that just  
  
seemed to fit the girl.  
  
Usagi giggled again. "How about some ice cream!?"  
  
"Sure! My favorite food, next to everything else."  
  
Usagi jumped up, grabbed Ranma's hand and ignored the strange tingle  
  
that rushed through her when they touched. She pulled the red headed  
  
girl along though the park, Ranma noticed that they were in the Juuban  
  
District by a nearby sign. She grinned at the hyper girl and wondered  
  
why she felt so protective of her all of a sudden. Then again, it had taken all  
  
of ten seconds for her to do the same thing with Akane. Eyeing her a little  
  
more closely, Ranma gasped as she noticed Usagi's aura. It was enough to  
  
make her trip over her feet and crash down to the ground, a high speed  
  
face fault.  
  
"Ranma! Are you alright!?" Usagi yelled, mortified that her new friend  
  
had fallen down, if she had even noticed the crater that Ranma had made  
  
earlier, she wouldn't have been as concerned.  
  
"Usagi, are you a fighter?" Ranma moaned out.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"You have a large fighter's aura, it's bigger than mine and I've been  
  
training for over 15 years!"  
  
"I've never been a martial artist, so I don't know what your talking  
  
about." Usagi said nervously.  
  
She's hiding something, Ranma thought, but then again so am I. Let's  
  
just hope there are no strange hot water accidents today. "That's okay,  
  
lets go and get that ice cream!" Ranma said and her stomach growled  
  
loudly enough to make her blush.  
  
Usagi giggled again, grabbed her hand and dragged her off down the  
  
street. A few minutes later they were in front of the Crown Arcade and  
  
Ranma found herself dragged inside, just in time to get dragged right  
  
into a pretty waitress holding a tray with several glasses of tea. They  
  
went up and came down on a shocked Ranma, she sighed when she stayed  
  
female. She didn't need yet another girl out for her blood just yet.  
  
"Hey Meatball Heat, I can't believe you just did that to this poor  
  
girl!" Said a girl with long black hair as she walked up to a shocked  
  
Usagi, who looked like she was about to cry again.  
  
"But...but...but...Whaaaaaaaa!" Ranma and Rei winced at the high  
  
pitched wail.  
  
"N-no harm done Usagi, it's just tea." Ranma said as she tried to get  
  
the blonde to quiet down.  
  
"I didn't mean to do it, I'm sooooo so-sorry!"  
  
"Keep the decibels down Usagi, your making a scene." Rei hissed.  
  
Ranma walked over and pulled Usagi to her feet, Rei helped and they  
  
headed over to a nearby booth. Rei pointed it out and said to her and  
  
said they were all friends with Usagi. Ranma noted the girls, a tall  
  
brunette and another girl that could have nearly passed as Akane's twin  
  
in the right circumstances. "Usagi I'm going to go and get some of this   
  
tea out of my shirt, I'll be back in a few minutes, okay?"  
  
"I'm sorry." She squeaked out.  
  
"Cheer up, it's not like this doesn't happen to me several times a  
  
week." Ranma quipped and walked off.  
  
"Huh!?" Usagi said a few seconds later, but noticed that Ranma was gone  
  
already.  
  
"Usagi, who is that?" Makoto asked.  
  
"Her name is Ranma, she helped me out a little while ago."  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"Mamoru dumped me again..." Usagi said sadly.  
  
"WHAT!!" They all yelled, it echoed outside the building.  
  
"That...that...idiot dumped me again while we were in the park, I was  
  
by the cliff crying when Ranma appeared out of nowhere to help me out  
  
and give me a shoulder to cry on."  
  
"Usagi, I don't think the Mamoru should be forgiven for this. I know  
  
you like him, but how many time has he done this to you? I think you   
  
need to find someone else..."  
  
"But what about...you know..."  
  
"We'll worry about that later, right now that idiot needs to be taught  
  
a lesson, he seems to go out of his way to hurt you now a days." Rei  
  
snarled, shocking Ami and Makoto.  
  
"I agree with Rei on this Usagi." Ami said quietly.  
  
"I'll break his arm and make sure he doesn't do this again." Makoto  
  
said, an evil glint in her eyes.  
  
Motoki came up to the girls and handed them the menus. "What's up  
  
girls?"  
  
"Hi Motoki." They all said, it was eerie.  
  
"Something wrong?"  
  
"Mamoru dumped Usagi again."  
  
"Your kidding, why?"  
  
"This time he said that he needed a break or something, then just left  
  
the park as if I didn't exist."  
  
"Are you going to be okay Usagi?"  
  
"Yeah, this is becoming a little routine, I only cried for about a half  
  
hour this time, the first time it took me weeks to recover."  
  
"How about a free ice cream on the house, I'll charge it to Mamoru's  
  
tab?"  
  
Usagi smiled evilly, shocking her friends more than a little, usually  
  
after being dumped she was totally useless for days. "Let's go one step  
  
further, he deserves this, get us all dinner and deserts. We'll order  
  
when my new friend gets back, and charge it all to Mamoru-baka."  
  
All the girl's were agreeable to the idea and Motoki was more than  
  
willing to go along with the idea, he and Mamoru may have been friends,  
  
but Mamoru was a total idiot sometimes. He was about to say something when  
  
he heard some people gasp behind him, turning around he gaped and had to  
  
consciously stop himself from drooling. There was this red headed fox  
  
walking across the arcade, she was wearing a gray t-shirt and sweat pants, no  
  
bra and some of the largest tits he had ever seen close up. It was slightly  
  
wet and her hard nipples were very noticeable, there was this graceful  
  
sway of her hips that made his, and every guy in sight, blood boil. He  
  
blushed and heard the girl's behind him giggle.  
  
Long ago Ranma had learned to ignore most anything to do with his  
  
female side, so didn't even the spreading blush and pounding hearts as  
  
she swayed across the arcade using the Saotome Lazy Walk Technique went  
  
totally unnoticed. Genma would have been mortified that his personalized  
  
technique that made men move with grace and power, would make a any  
  
female that used it more graceful than a runway model. It had been  
  
drilled into her body through 10 years of hiking around the world. "Hi  
  
Usagi, sorry that took so long." Ranma said as she stepped up beside the  
  
blonde guy by the table.  
  
All the girls giggled. "That's alright Ranma, we are going to get a little revenge on  
  
my boyfriend, want to help?"  
  
"Sure, what's the plan?" Ranma said as she sat down next to Usagi.  
  
"It's all you can eat night, he's paying."  
  
"Oh?" Ranma said carefully, visions of food dancing in her head, she  
  
never turned down free food.  
  
"Yep, get anything you want." Usagi giggled.  
  
"Okay." Ranma looked the menu over and opened it up to show a still  
  
blushing Motoki, who's eyes were glued to Ranma's large chest. "Give me  
  
everything on this side of the menu."  
  
"Y-you want all that!?" He gasped.  
  
"Yep, I haven't had a decent meal in several days and I'm hungry."  
  
Ranma said, failing to notice the girl's giving her strange looks, then  
  
turning to Usagi. "I'll have the same!"  
  
A fortune in food later, Ranma and Usagi were finishing off there 15th  
  
plate of food, they were both looking over at the other girl's plates as  
  
if thinking about eating them too. Ami, Rei, and Makoto were impressed,  
  
no one had ever kept up with Usagi before. That and the fact that the  
  
two girls had started this little game, stealing food from the others  
  
plate while the other defended. Ranma had won, but Usagi had learned  
  
really quick and they had been dueling over a couple of Rice balls for  
  
several minutes before Ranma had tricked Usagi into letting her defenses  
  
down.  
  
"You know, I just thought of something Usagi." Ranma said.  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"You never introduced me to your friends."  
  
Usagi face faulted. The others just giggled at their friend and  
  
introduced themselves. "We were wondering when one of you was going to  
  
remember." Makoto said. "I'm Kino Makoto, this is Hino Rei, and Mizuno  
  
Ami  
  
"Nice to meet'cha, say Ami, do you have any relatives named Tendo?"  
  
"Tendo? Not that I can recall, why?" Asked the blue haired genius.  
  
"I have a friend named Tendo Akane, you two could almost be twins if your hair  
  
was more black and a little shorter." That and wielding a large mallet and flaring an  
  
aura of pure rage over some imagined slight, Ranma muttered under her breath.   
  
"I'll have to meet her sometime."  
  
"Just ask Umino at school Ami, he can find out anything on anyone."  
  
Usagi said.  
  
For the next hour or so Ranma and the girls talked of useless stuff,  
  
but Ranma found it fun to do and enjoyed herself the whole time. They  
  
all giggled at what the look on Mamoru's face would be when he got the  
  
bill for their little revenge dinner. It was getting late when Ranma  
  
noticed the clock, it was nearly midnight! She pointed it out to the  
  
others and they all gasped and ran off for home after making quick phone  
  
calls to let their parents know they were on their way home.  
  
Ranma and Usagi were left alone outside the as they left the Arcade,  
  
Motoki had locked up right behind them. He had said that it wasn't a  
  
problem, even he had forgotten to close up on time. He had been staring  
  
at the red head all night, never in his life had he seen a girl quite  
  
like her. She was drop dead gorgeous tomboy that was making him question  
  
his resolve to stay with...what was her name again...Ri..Rita! He  
  
watched as the girl's walked off and wondered if his hard on had been  
  
noticeable to anyone.  
  
"Can I ask you a question Ranma, you told us a lot about yourself  
  
tonight, but I noticed that you were always holding something back. What  
  
was it?"  
  
"..." Ranma looked away and said nothing, she winced.  
  
"Please?"  
  
"Usagi, I...I made a friend nearly a year ago, but the instant she  
  
figured out the truth about me she started to hate me like you wouldn't  
  
believe. I don't want to go through that again."  
  
"It can't be that bad can it?"  
  
"I've been thinking about if for a year now and have come to the  
  
conclusion that it depends on how one is able to accept the strange and  
  
unusual. I told all of you a little about my life, but those were only  
  
the edited highlights. My life is a living hell at times, duels,  
  
attacks, fiancé's, an idiot father and an insane mother. To top off my  
  
life is something the idiot did to me, he took me to this place in China  
  
that was an actual Cursed Training Ground. Magic and the hole nine  
  
yards. I have nightmares about that place every now an then, what it did  
  
to me and what it took away."  
  
"W-what happened." Usagi hugged her friend, what could have happened to  
  
make Ranma this afraid to talk about it.  
  
"It depends on one's point of view, I have had that shoved down my  
  
throat so many times that I want to scream sometimes."  
  
"Please tell me."  
  
"I don't know if I should..."  
  
"I don't want to lose another friend Usagi...I don't have many."  
  
"Please..." Usagi asks, her eyes growing big and sparkling.  
  
"Alright, something tells me I can trust you." Ranma says. It is more  
  
than that though, he can feel it in his soul and it confuses him more  
  
than a little. This girl is absolutely beautiful, her innocence is  
  
something he has never encountered before and her aura is the most  
  
beautiful thing he had ever seen. The mere sight of her makes his heart  
  
beat faster and her pleading face, just inches from her own is making  
  
her blush.  
  
"Your a lesbian aren't you?" Usagi whispers out.  
  
Ranma face faults, giggling. "Not quite."  
  
"Drat, I was sure that was it, you've been staring at me and the others  
  
all night."  
  
"Your all very cute Usagi." Where the hell did that come from, Ranma  
  
thought, oh great she's blushing now. "Those springs I was talking about  
  
cursed me and my father, they have brought me nothing but bad luck and  
  
numerous problems."  
  
"In what way were you cursed?"  
  
"Sigh..." Ranma pointed to a small convenience store across the street.  
  
"Lets go in there and let me get some hot water."  
  
"Hot water?"  
  
"You'll see in a moment." Ranma continued to explain the springs and  
  
how they worked. Usagi was starting to think her new friend was making  
  
things up when they left the store with a large cup of hot water. They  
  
went to a nearby alley and Ranma held up the hot water, "Now this will  
  
reverse the curse and change me back into the boy I was born as."  
  
"...A boy?" Usagi's eye was twitching, as she said this. Then Ranma  
  
poured the water, red hair turned black, he grew nearly a foot, and  
  
filled out in some places and shrank in others. Usagi gaped at the  
  
cutest boy she had ever seen, eeped, and fainted.  
  
"That's a pretty typical reaction." Ranma commented as he picked the  
  
girl up and carried her over to a nearby bench.  
  
Usagi stirred and found herself in the boys arms, which were holding  
  
her close. His chest was as solid as a rock and he didn't seem to be  
  
straining very much to hold her as he carried her. Usagi's heart was  
  
beating a mile a minute and she started to blush uncontrollably when she  
  
felt just where Ranma had 'his' hands. Her new friend was a boy and a  
  
girl and totally adorable in either form, experience with magic had  
  
given her a pretty good idea on how it worked.  
  
No one, not even Mamoru had made her feel like this and Usagi wanted  
  
more of it. She memorized his face, his hair, and his...beautiful blue eyes.  
  
Sigh. Then he grinned at her and if she had been standing her knees  
  
would have given out, his smile lit up her soul. Ranma made it to the  
  
bench and sat her down carefully, trying to hide his reactions. She must  
  
hate him now...  
  
"I'll be heading out now." Ranma said quietly.  
  
"No!" Usagi yelled and grabbed his hand. "Don't go."  
  
"Huh, but...you must be mad at me now, for lying to you."  
  
"You didn't lie, your curse isn't so bad..."  
  
"Usagi...my father raised me to be 'Man among Men, a pillar of  
  
masculinity and pride. His testament to the Art. He spent all his life  
  
telling me that I was a 'weak' girl, that girls were nothing compared to  
  
men. It went on and on for years until it was a permanent part of my  
  
soul, then he took me to that training ground and turned me to a girl.  
  
He nearly disowned me when he first found out what he had done and  
  
blamed it on me being as weak as a real girl. I was failure and a  
  
disgrace to him, he beat me to within an inch of my life for daring to  
  
destroy 'his' dream.  
  
"Ranma..."  
  
"Then he found out that the curses were reversible with hot or cold  
  
water and decided that it 'wasn't so bad'. He took me to his friend and  
  
had me engaged to his boy hating daughter and I have had to put up with  
  
her abuse for the last year, and the daily beatings that I can't lift a  
  
finger to defend myself against because I have to marry her. Then it got  
  
worse, people I considered to be my friends started to show up and try and  
  
kill me for things I hadn't done or they had misunderstood and blamed me  
  
for. First was Ryoga and his grudge against me for not waiting long  
  
enough at the prearranged place for our fight, it was behind his house  
  
and I waited over 3 days for him to show up, during the 4th pops showed  
  
up and beat me up in sparing match so that we could go to China.  
  
Ryoga showed up a few hours later and went berserk, he followed me all  
  
the way to China and those cursed training grounds. I was chasing after  
  
pops after we were cursed, I was as mad as Ryoga was and I didn't  
  
recognize him after all those months on the road. Pops ran by him and  
  
backhanded him, I jumped up in an attempt to use him as a spring board  
  
to catch pops. Instead I kneed him in the head and sent falling off a  
  
nearby cliff, right into a cursed spring of a drowned piglet.  
  
Usagi, if I had some kind of control over my curse I could live with  
  
it, but it attracts cold water to me like a magnet does metal. I get  
  
changed at the worst time possible and usually end up in the hospital  
  
because of it because of Akane or the others I mentioned in the stories  
  
I told you about."  
  
Usagi was crying now, holding onto Ranma as tightly as she could. "So  
  
all those other girls are actually your other fiancé's?"  
  
"Unwanted fiancé's Usagi, I didn't pick any of them, my father did.  
  
Usually to find a way to fill his stomach. He once engaged me to this  
  
really rich family for a bowl of rice, a couple of pickles, and a  
  
friggen fish. There are others out there to, I don't have a clue how  
  
many, but new one pops up every few months and I have to trick them into  
  
giving up on me. Then there is Ukyo, pops stole her dowry and abandoned  
  
her while we were on the road. He told me he sent her home so we could  
  
continue our training mission, I was six at the time so I still trusted  
  
the idiot."  
  
"Your entire life is like this?" Usagi asked.  
  
"Pretty much, it just gets worse and worse."  
  
"Now I understand why you don't want to go home."  
  
"This curse is also one that turns one's life upside down, I usually  
  
can't go a half hour with out sticking my foot in my mouth or making a  
  
new enemy." Ranma looked depressed, still not to sure why he had decided  
  
tell Usagi all this.  
  
"What about your mother Ranma, can't she help you?"  
  
"Mom...she made me and pops sign this suicide contract before we left  
  
on my training trip. She's the one that wanted me to be a 'Man among  
  
Men' in the first place. She comes over to the Tendo place where I live  
  
and goes on and on about how manly I have to be, how I have to peak at  
  
girls while they're in the bath to manly, or how bedding all my fiancé's  
  
would be a great way to find out which one would be the best in bed.  
  
Then there is my curse, every time she sees me as a girl she starts  
  
fingering the family sword, she carries it around everywhere, and  
  
glaring at me until I find some hot water and become her manly son  
  
again."  
  
"I think I understand now, your father and that curse have brought you  
  
nothing but pain and loneliness haven't they."  
  
"Yep, those are the worst problems I have to deal with, then I have to  
  
put up with the constant fighting. Today is the first day in a long time  
  
that I haven't had to fend off one challenger after another. Ryoga is my  
  
rival, friend, and enemy, he attacks me on sight no matter where I am  
  
and has traveled the world to find techniques to help him get revenge  
  
for my knocking him into that cursed pool and turning him into a little  
  
black pig. You ever hear about Ki attacks like in the movies?"  
  
"Sure..." Usagi's eyes go wide when Ranma holds up his hand and  
  
baseball sized ball of blue energy forms. "It's beautiful."  
  
"All my fights have pushed me into learning technique after technique  
  
to protect myself and those I care about. Ryoga found a technique that  
  
let him learn how to harness Ki and use it as a weapon, he tried to kill  
  
me with it and nearly succeeded in doing so. I had to learn how to  
  
counter him in less than a week or I was a dead man." Ranma smirked. "I  
  
did it in three days."  
  
"Ranma, how much do you like being a girl?" Usagi asked suddenly.  
  
"Huh...um...I've grown used to it on most levels, even accepted that I  
  
will probably be like this for the rest of my life. Why?"  
  
"You could probably stay with me or Makoto if you don't want to go home  
  
to that mess."  
  
"The idea is very tempting Usagi, I really like you, but for me to be a  
  
man I have to keep my word. I can't run from my problems, I swore that I  
  
wouldn't end up like my father. The honorless bastard."  
  
"Then take a vacation from them, let things settle down and while you  
  
are away you can make some decisions to fix this mess."  
  
"I wouldn't even know where to begin Usagi."  
  
"I think the first thing you have to do is take control of your life,  
  
get away from your father and everyone trying to tell you what to do."  
  
"That I do understand, but if I want to keep my honor I must do as the  
  
old fart says and marry a girl that has caused me nothing but pain."  
  
Usagi's communicator went off and she sighed in exasperation. "What  
  
now!?"  
  
"What's going on Usagi?"  
  
"Let me answer this and I'll explain, be quiet and don't say anything."  
  
Usagi popped the hood of her watch open and revealed a very impressive  
  
communicator/phone. Ranma nodded that he would be quiet and let Usagi do  
  
what she had to do.  
  
"Usagi, we have a monster raiding homes near the school." Said Rei's  
  
voice.  
  
"Hurry Usagi, we need Sailor Moon here as soon as possible." Said Ami's  
  
voice.  
  
"I'm on my way guys, I'm near there now." She closed the watch and  
  
noticed that Ranma was looking her over pretty closely, she blushed and  
  
stood up. "I have to go and take care of this."  
  
"Sailor Moon?"  
  
"Yep?"  
  
"You know, that explains your super strong aura."  
  
"You believe me?"  
  
"Sure, you took my word about my curse when you didn't have to. I do  
  
want to see what you look like when transformed though." Ranma grinned.  
  
Usagi smiled back and pulled the broach off her front bow, opened it,  
  
and shouted "Moon Eternal, Make-Up!" Thirty seconds later Usagi stopped  
  
spinning and smirked at Ranma, who was bent over holding his nose.  
  
"Ranma, what's wrong!?"  
  
Ranma took a deep breath and looked up at his friend, blushing  
  
furiously. "Do you know that you are naked for a good portion of that  
  
light show?"  
  
Sailor Moon eeped and hopped back and turned bright red, she had  
  
forgotten that little detail. "Heheheheheheheh..." Usagi laughed  
  
nervously.  
  
"Where is this monster again? Let's go and help out your friends Usagi."  
  
Ranma said.  
  
"Call me Eternal Sailor Moon when I'm in this get up Ranma, and this is  
  
my fight let me and the others handle this."  
  
"I'm a very strong fighter, I have beaten a lot of fighters that are a  
  
lot stronger than me."  
  
"I'm sure you have Ranma, but we have never met a regular human that  
  
could stand up these things." Waving goodbye, Eternal Sailor Moon handed  
  
Ranma a note with her name, address, and phone number on it before  
  
jumping to a nearby roof and running off.  
  
Ranma waited about thirty seconds before following her, if what he was  
  
feeling was right, she was about a quarter mile away already and  
  
accelerating. He gasped at the girls speed, even he couldn't move that  
  
fast, but he knew she was heading into danger and would help her out no  
  
matter what. He wouldn't let his guard down, his friends were hard to  
  
come by. Blue light flared around Ranma and he launched off the building  
  
and landed on the next running full tilt. Far off in the distance Ranma  
  
could see Usagi's aura lighting up the night.  
  
**********  
  
To Be Continued...  
  
Ending Note - Some of you are probably a little confused as to why Ranma  
  
would so easily give so much of his life to Usagi. Well I do have a  
  
reason for it and it is given in the next chapter, will you pick up on  
  
it? It is such a small piece of information that one may miss it because  
  
I don't come right out and say it. Evil laugh... 


	3. TM2

**********  
  
The Replacement  
  
Chapter 02 - Tuxedo Mask2 or TM2  
  
By C. Rose  
  
ertle2@msn.com  
  
(c)2001  
  
**********  
  
Usagi's mind was awhirl with questions as she landed on the roof and  
  
left Ranma behind. She didn't know why but she trusted him more than she  
  
did her own parents and she hadn't even known him an entire day yet. She  
  
got her bearings and took off at run, jumping from roof top to roof  
  
top as she centered in on the Scouts location with her special powers.  
  
Luna had explained that all the Scouts had to do was focus on something  
  
and if it was powerful enough, they could get a fix on it with their  
  
minds. After several weeks of practice she had found that she find the  
  
Scouts anywhere, whether transformed or not, but for some reason  
  
couldn't find the enemy if her life depended on it. Luna was always  
  
harping on her about it, saying that in Silver Millennium she was this  
  
or that or whatever.  
  
She was totally sick of it after three years of listening to her whine  
  
and complain about it. Her friends were in trouble, she could sense it  
  
now, a very strong aura of dark power was in the area and she could feel  
  
their power fading as they fought it with everything they had. Usagi  
  
hopped the final intersection and looked around the corner of the wall  
  
she was beside. The monster was vaguely female and looked to have been a small dog at one point in time, she giggled silently. The stupid things  
  
just got more and more stupid looking a time went on, oh well, time to  
  
help her friends out. She ran around the corner and hopped up on a wall  
  
and gave her speech, dodged an attack, and landed with a smirk beside  
  
Mercury.  
  
For the first time in her life she felt a little stupid for wasting her  
  
time giving the speech, it irritated her to no end. "Mercury, Jupiter,  
  
attack it from the sides while I do the front. Go!"  
  
The girl's stared at her in shock for a second, shrugged and went about  
  
flanking the monster while Eternal Sailor Moon spun her scepter. Mercury  
  
fired off a 'Mercury Aqua Rhapsody' and Jupiter fired off a 'Jupiter Oak Evolution' just seconds before Moon let loose her blast 'Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss'. All three hit it causing a giant explosion that ripped the street apart.  
  
They stood back and waited for the smoke and dust to clear to see if the  
  
thing is dust or not, but a few seconds later a large shadow  
  
shambles out and shakes itself. The white fur on it's sides is frozen  
  
and fried, but it is undamaged where Moon blasted it and it grinned evilly  
  
at them. It had been warned, but if this was all they had it was going to be  
  
an easy win for his side. It opened it's mouth and 'barked' at them, it  
  
was so loud that it shattered windows a block away and knocked the  
  
Scouts off their feet. A foot long tongue lolled out in a dog like smile  
  
and it panted at them.  
  
Mars and Jupiter are the first back to their feet and they both start  
  
lobbing attacks at it from all directions, but it dodges and barks right  
  
at Mars. She is blasted off her feet and slammed into the wall hard  
  
enough to make it crack, knocking her out. It ran forward as foot long  
  
claws pop out of it's fingers, going in for the kill. Moon fired off her  
  
attack again and blasts the thing off it's feet, it rolled for several  
  
yards before standing back up. Jupiter fired again, putting everything  
  
she had into it, but it dodged somehow and 'barks' at her. Like Mars she  
  
is blasted off her feet, vaguely hearing glass shattering in the back  
  
round, and knows instantly that she has broken several ribs.  
  
"Mercury, why isn't my attack working?" Moon asks calmly.  
  
Pulling out computer. "Um...I'm not sure, it seems to be doing damage  
  
to the monster, but it just shrugs them off. Oh, here we go, you need to  
  
alter the attack a little, it's trying to make that thing human like we  
  
usually do, but this is a real monster and not some transformed human. Try  
  
one of your old attacks."  
  
"Okay, now lets see if this thing can handle a..." Moon say as she  
  
turns to perform a 'Rainbow Moon Heart Ache' attack, and sees the  
  
monster bark in their direction.  
  
"BARK!!!"  
  
Visions of what the thing did to Mars and Jupiter flash through Usagi's  
  
mind as it lets loose and she gasped in shock as this time the sound  
  
waves rip up the ground as it headed right towards her and Mercury. She  
  
screamed in shock and barely noticed a gray and black blur, pick her up and leave  
  
her stomach back on the ground. It is just seconds later that she feels  
  
the weight to gravity again and opens her eyes, the world was spinning a bit and she blinked in surprise, looking around. She spotted  
  
Mercury beside her and noticed that she is bright red and blushing as  
  
brightly as she can, her eyes looking up at something.  
  
Usagi looks and gasps as she sees Ranma holding the both of them in his  
  
arms and that they are twirling through the air like some kind of  
  
acrobat. The spin around to land on the small ledge of a lamp post over  
  
looking the battle. "Are you two okay?" He asks, holding the girls in  
  
his arms.  
  
"..." Mercury says, blushing, she looks down at Ranma's hand where it  
  
is grasping her left breast and freezes.  
  
"Ranma, what are you doing here, I told you to go home!" Moon yells,  
  
not noticing Mercury getting mad and flustered.  
  
"Your my friend, I will not let you go off into a dangerous fight  
  
without me as back up and from the looks of things you guys need it!"  
  
Ranma snaps as he set the girls down on the pole behind him.  
  
"Ranma..."  
  
"PERVERT!!!" Mercury yells and punches Ranma right across the chin,  
  
sending him flying off the pole and into the monster down below.  
  
"Mercury?"  
  
"He was coping a feel!" She yells, still blushing.  
  
Eternal Sailor Moon blinked in confusion. "..."  
  
That felt like being hit by Ryoga, Ranma thinks as he flew off the  
  
pole and slammed into the monster knocking it back a few feet. He  
  
flipped to his feet and takes in the battle field, noting where everyone  
  
is. Off in the distance he can see another blonde headed Scout heading  
  
this way and hopes she is stronger than the other girls. He twists  
  
suddenly and dodges a claw swipe of the monster and smirks at it. "You  
  
don't have even half the speed needed to hit me, dog breath."  
  
"Growl! We'll see about that human!"  
  
Ranma doesn't give him the chance, he had been watching the battle  
  
since Usagi's first attack and knew this thing was very strong. Those  
  
girl's blasts were strong enough to level buildings if they hit and this  
  
thing was shrugging them off. He had the power to hurt it he was sure,  
  
but didn't know if he could control it half as well as the Scouts, they  
  
didn't need to know that though. He jumped forward and slammed the heel of his hand into the things jaw and shattering it with a loud crunch, from  
  
there it got worse as he sped up and used his most powerful physical  
  
attack on it at blinding speed. The Kachi Tenshin Amaguriken pummeled it from all sides as he kept it off balance, breaking bones and shattering  
  
ribs as he went.  
  
He jumped back and brought his arms forward as he burst out in a giant  
  
blue aura. "Möko Takabisha Double Shot!" Ranma yelled and sent 4 large  
  
balls of blazing energy(two from each hand) at the thing to put it out  
  
of it's misery. They exploded with about the same amount of power as the  
  
Scouts earlier attacks and shook the ground and sending a column of  
  
smoke and dust into the sky. "Take that Lassie!"  
  
"BARK!!" Came out of the destruction and slammed into Ranma, he  
  
screamed as his aura was the only thing to save him from certain death.  
  
As it was he was catapulted off his feet and plowed into the ground at  
  
about mach 1, leaving a 30 foot long trench with him out cold at the far  
  
end. Usagi screamed in horror as he worst nightmare came to pass, an  
  
innocent hurt in their fight. She jumped off the pole and ran over to  
  
Ranma to see how bad it was.  
  
Mercury lowered her computer and grinned. "Weakness found." She said  
  
and focused her powers a little differently than she usually did. This  
  
would take a little skill and luck to pull off she thought, but she had  
  
never had time to really practice doing this before. Her power flowed  
  
around her hands and lit them up in a bright blue glow, she didn't even  
  
notice as the temperature around her dropped over forty degrees in  
  
seconds. She thrust her hands forward and yelled. "'Mercury Aqua  
  
Rhapsody Pinpoint Attack!' A foot wide beam of super frozen energy fired  
  
out of hands and struck the dog like thing in the middle of the back. It  
  
blew the monster to pieces with a loud yelp pain.  
  
Drained of everything she had, Mercury fell off the light pole, but  
  
Venus caught her before she could injure herself. "That was great  
  
Mercury, did you just learn how to do that?"  
  
"Just had to focus my power a little differently, any of us can do it  
  
if we need to." Mercury said just before she passed out.  
  
About fifty feet away Usagi was kneeling by Ranma, tears trailing down  
  
her face as she took in all of the boy's damage. It looked as if over  
  
half of his bones had been crushed in the attack and several others  
  
broken as he dug the trench. Even more amazing was the fact that he was  
  
still alive, his aura was flickering around him and she could see it  
  
actually speeding up his healing. It was even reforming the bones as she  
  
watched, of course she didn't notice the Silver Crystal glowing as she  
  
hugged her friend, she was crying to hard.  
  
The crystal flashed and Usagi's world lurched, she fell on her face and  
  
groaned when she impacted on a stone tile floor that was polished to  
  
perfection. There was giggling behind her and she looked up to see Queen  
  
Serenity sitting on her throne. "Welcome daughter, I see you are as good  
  
at making entrances as you were back on the Moon Kingdom." Giggle.  
  
"Humph!" Princess Serenity said and crossed her arms, looking away.  
  
"I can only hold you here for only so long my daughter, there is something  
  
you need to know."  
  
"Go ahead, Mother."  
  
"Every generation one is given a Soul Mate, Destiny demands this even  
  
if you don't find out who it is. When I sent all of you forward it  
  
messed up the cycle a little, but Destiny found a way around that by  
  
following his rules. Your soul mate from my time was sent forward for  
  
you, but destiny also provided you with one for your new life and that  
  
boy is the one."  
  
"WHAT!!?"  
  
"Can't you feel it daughter? Soul mates affect each other on every  
  
level imaginable, from the way one thinks to the way we see things and  
  
this goes double for those you are linked with. When you met Endymion  
  
you hated his guts, and yet you couldn't get him out of your mind no  
  
matter how hard you tried. This Ranma is far stronger than Endymion ever  
  
will be, he is a trained fighter and holds honor above all else."  
  
"B-b-b-b-but what about Crystal Tokyo?" Princess Serenity yelled.  
  
"It's still there, though it will change a little as will your outlook  
  
on things, I think it is for the best really. Especially with how bad  
  
Endymion has been treating you lately, he even went out of the country  
  
the other day and left without saying goodbye to you."  
  
"He what?" She said in a flat voice.  
  
"He ditched you, as you say it."  
  
"If Ranma is my Soul Mate, then it is too late to do anything about it,  
  
he is dieing as we speak."  
  
"You forget that time doesn't pass while we are in this place, we are  
  
outside of time."  
  
"How can I save him, I don't know how..." Sniffle.  
  
"Don't cry, just do for him what I did for Endymion all those years ago  
  
when you chose him to be your future husband."  
  
Usagi's eyes blink and she is back with Ranma, memories of her lost  
  
love filling her head, she gets some more of her memories back. Her   
  
uniform flares as her princess dress forms and she bends over to  
  
kiss Ranma on the forehead, just above the shiner that Mercury had given  
  
him. There is a flare of power where they touch and solid piece of light  
  
falls out of the Silver Crystal and into Ranma's chest. Ranma gasped for  
  
air and groaned in pain as his injuries are completely healed as if they  
  
had never been, he is just supremely tired.  
  
"Usagi?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"You know what this means don't you?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"I've got another fiancée to deal with." Smirk.  
  
"Another...you...you...you..."  
  
"FIANCÉE!!!" Four Scouts yell out in unison from where they had been  
  
spying on the two. Usagi screams and scrambled away in shock, gasping  
  
for air. In the process she climbs over Ranma and trips, planting her  
  
crotch right in his face. A thrill runs through her and she freaks,  
  
"Eeep!!" scrambling away in shock. Ranma's eyes are bulging out of his  
  
head from being so close to...to...'where are her panties?' he thinks  
  
just before a little blood trickles out of his nose and he passes out,  
  
with a little smile plastered to his face.  
  
Usagi blushes a solid red, all the way down to her toes and hears all  
  
the girls laughing at her even as she loses her princess transformation.  
  
**********  
  
"What did you do Meatball Head?!" Rei yelled in Usagi's ear.  
  
"He was dieing, I needed to save him somehow."  
  
"But what did you do? I've never seen you do anything like that before,  
  
you gave him some of your power, just like that time you did the same  
  
thing to save your boyfriend."  
  
"Leave that idiot out of this Rei, I don't want to even think about him  
  
right now."  
  
"But Usagi, he is the one destined to be the King of Earth!" Makoto  
  
pointed out. They were all at the Shrine, and had been yelling at each  
  
other for over an hour now.  
  
"That may be, but me and him are done, he has hurt me one time to many,  
  
I won't take him back. If any of you want him, go ahead." Usagi snapped.  
  
"What?!" They all yelled again.  
  
"A few days ago he ran off to America according to my mother and I didn't even know he was going to be leaving this time. I've had enough and I won't put up with it anymore."  
  
"But Usagi, who will you use to replace him, that boy you used the  
  
Crystal to save? The one in the room next door?"  
  
"I had a little talk with my mother about him and it seems that he is  
  
my Soul mate for this lifetime. Me and Mamoru were soul mates, for my  
  
last lifetime, but one can only cause so much pain before it become to  
  
much to handle. As for Ranma, giggle, you guys already know him."  
  
"What?!" They all yelled again, only louder and with enough wind to  
  
make Usagi's hair flare out behind her.  
  
"Usagi, I would remember a good looking guy like this, I mean he is a  
  
total hunk." Minako said, Makoto nodding, she had been about to say  
  
something similar.  
  
"Isn't Ranma the name of that girl we met earlier today?" Ami asked,  
  
noticing that this guy and Ranma were wearing the same clothing.  
  
"Yep, their the same person." Usagi proclaims.  
  
"Um...Usagi, one has a great body and the other is built better than  
  
me." Makoto said, a little envious.  
  
"He explained it to me earlier, he is under a curse he picked up in  
  
China, he even demonstrated it for me. Cold water turns him into a girl  
  
and hot water makes him a man again, we were talking about it when you  
  
guys called us about that monster."  
  
"What a load of crap!" Rei yelled. "Now what did you do to him?!"  
  
"If you must know, I formed his soul into a Senshi Seed."  
  
"A...what?" Ami gasped.  
  
"With the idiot gone, we need a little help and I thought that Ranma  
  
would be perfect, I trust him as much as I do you. A Senshi Seed is what  
  
we need to become Scouts, I infused a part of the Crystal into him and  
  
gave him some powers. What form they will take is still a mystery, it  
  
all depends on how he sees things. He will be taking Tuxedo Masks place,  
  
but his powers will be completely different as will his look. The Seed  
  
will also allow him to transform into Mask, increasing his personal  
  
powers hundred fold. The same as happens to us."  
  
"If that is true Usagi, what about his girl side, if I am a to even  
  
believe any of that?" Rei said."  
  
"Got me, it's never happened before, he may be powerless, gain the same  
  
abilities male or female, or end up in Fuku when transformed as a girl."  
  
"Which planet did you connect her power to?"  
  
"None yet, I just gave him the Seed, I'll decide on the planet later."  
  
"Um...Usagi, no offence, but since when are you this focused. Usually  
  
by now you have stolen all of Rei's manga and eaten all the food!"  
  
Minako yelled, a little scared.  
  
"Hmm...oh that..." Usagi grinned. "To be able to save Ranma, I had to  
  
have some of my knowledge of Magic returned to me, I got a number  
  
of my memories back from the Moon Kingdom."  
  
"What?!" They all yelled again.  
  
Usagi giggled and snatched some of the cookies off the plate in front  
  
of Makoto, much to Minako's relief. She had been beginning to wonder  
  
if this Ranma had done something to her friend. Though the mention of   
  
Soul Mates had tickled some long forgotten memory of hers, she would  
  
have to sit down and try and remember what it was later.  
  
**********  
  
Sailor Pluto was guarding the Gate of Time when she felt the wave of  
  
change hit, all of reality wavered for several seconds. She was thrown  
  
to the ground as the fabric of space and time was split asunder and  
  
reformed into something new. Fear filled her eyes as she crawled to her  
  
feet and looked around, but she could find no changes. She opened the  
  
door and checked on Crystal Tokyo and gasped, dropping her staff at  
  
the image that greeted her almost instantly.  
  
**********  
  
Pride was Ranma's biggest problem, it allowed him to force himself to  
  
be the best there is, no matter what. He had just been defeated by a  
  
stupid demon dog, it was humiliating to say the least. He could hear his  
  
father yelling at him for not being good enough, for being weak like a  
  
girl, a waste of time and a pathetic fighter to boot. Weak, like a girl,  
  
yeah right. The Scouts in their stupid uniforms had been using more  
  
power than he ever could and as each of them arrived at the fight they  
  
had grown stronger and stronger. It briefly crossed his mind that they  
  
may have won earlier if he hadn't interfered, but shrugged it off, Usagi had  
  
been in danger and he had moved to help her.  
  
He hadn't meant to grab Mercury like that, but he'd only had  
  
milliseconds to act and he had grabbed them without thought. His life  
  
sucked. Where had he picked up the curse where he was able to make women jump to all these silly conclusions that had no basis in reality? The  
  
only one he remembered was his 'girl' curse, and now this was happening.  
  
Ranma stood at the edge of a cliff that over looked a mountain surrounded  
  
by fog, there seemed to be a large city within the fog because of the  
  
large number of buildings that were just barely visible as they poked  
  
out of the top edges of the heavy blanket of white.  
  
How he had gotten here was a mystery, but he had a feeling he was  
  
dreaming. Still he wasn't sure if that was true or what, he was far too  
  
alert and the clammy feel of the air was a little spooky. He was also  
  
feeling a little depressed, he had lost a fight he needed to win and he  
  
was worried about Usagi. Why? He couldn't grasp that simple question, it  
  
was more than what he usually felt for the other girls in his life, why  
  
was she so different? He had known her for less than a day, and yet  
  
there was something there that he couldn't identify. Some emotion that he  
  
had never felt in his life and he didn't know what to do about it, so he tried  
  
to ignore it and move on like he always did with things he didn't understand.  
  
A ghostly image of Usagi appeared beside Ranma and he studied her, her strange hairdo, her innocent eyes, her aura, everything about her and  
  
felt a stirring within him that only Akane had ever been able to bring  
  
out in him, but this was much stronger. When he thought of Akane, all he  
  
could remember was her hate filled eyes and that thrice cursed mallet  
  
that seemed to just be ignored by his danger sense for some reason and  
  
always caught him off guard. Even Akane's smile was hard for him to  
  
picture anymore and that saddened him more than a little, how were they  
  
supposed to get married if she didn't trust him with anything? He  
  
wouldn't put up with an abusive marriage, never would he tolerate that.  
  
Even Ukyo tended to strike with that giant spatula of hers for the strangest  
  
reasons, he figured it was her paying him back for them abandoning her.   
  
She may not have even realized that she was doing it or the pain it caused  
  
him, Usagi had shown him noting but kindness in the time he had known her.  
  
A second image of Usagi appeared, one of her as Eternal Sailor Moon and he wondered how and why such a caring girl was one of the most powerful magical girls on the planet. They were famous throughout Japan and had developed quite a reputation over the last couple of years, even he had heard about them. As ESM, Usagi was a totally different person in his eyes, she seemed more mature and obtained a fighting spirit that wasn't in her regular form. Her magic protected her from things that would have killed most, and she had attacks that could level entire city blocks. He could remember reading about this fight they had a year or so ago where they had leveled a ten story building, turning it into rubble in less than an hour. He sighed as he considered the other girls as well, they were all also far stronger than he was, and they were girls. They were, not, weak as he had been raised to believe by his old man and he had to wonder where he had ever come up with the idea that all girls were weak and useless.  
  
Ranma's head hurt, if he was wrong about that, what else was he wrong  
  
about? Could he trust anything his father had ever taught him? He didn't  
  
want to think about it and barely noticed as the two images of Usagi  
  
wavered and vanished to be replaced by his first sight of the girl. She  
  
was curled up in a ball and crying, it was obvious to him that she was  
  
in more pain than should have been possible. He hadn't seen it before,  
  
just that she was crying, why had he missed it? She vanished as he took  
  
a step forward, the air wavered around him and he found himself at the  
  
edge of the cliff again, this time there was stone stair case heading  
  
down into the valley below. They blended right into the rock and he knew  
  
that they were invisible from almost any direction than the exact spot the   
  
was now standing.  
  
Definitely a dream he decided, like the visions of Usagi were not  
  
enough evidence of that his mind said and kicked him for good measure.   
  
He stepped onto the stairs and headed down, it took close to an hour   
  
and he was just starting to feel tired as he stepped off the last step and looked deeper into the fog as it closed in around him like a thick soup that didn't want him there. Looking back at the stairs he wasn't to surprised to see that they were barely noticeable, they blended in perfectly with the background.   
  
The fog on the floor of the valley was thick and obscured his vision to about twenty feet and he shivered from the drop in temperature, there was something wrong with this town. He could feel it in his bones, there was no sound except the wind and echo of his foot steps on the stone as he walked forward.  
  
"If you must know, I formed his soul into a Senshi Seed." Echoed on the  
  
wind and Ranma stopped.  
  
"A...what?" Said a somewhat familiar voice.  
  
"...nshi Seed is what...need to become Scouts, ...fused a part of the  
  
Sil...Crystal into him and gave him some pow..."  
  
Ranma looked around for the barely understood voices, but could find  
  
nothing out of the ordinary. Then blinked and looked off in the distance  
  
to spot something he had dismissed earlier, a single light that pierced  
  
the fog. From above it would have been unnoticeable, but down here it  
  
was just bright enough to see. He ran forward and hoped that it was sign  
  
of life, for everything else seemed to be quiet and devoid of life. The  
  
light grew stronger as he moved an soon the outline of a large square  
  
building came into sight, the light shining from a window above the  
  
door.  
  
The building was made out of pure white marble and stood out from the  
  
dark gray stone buildings around it. There were large stairs leading up  
  
the front that ended at a walkway that lead to the large closed door.  
  
Marble columns were placed every twenty feet or so all along the edge  
  
and supported a massive looking roof of pale gold tiles. He stared at it  
  
in awe and had to surpress a laugh as he wondered what his father would  
  
do if he saw all that gold just laying there. Stepping upon the steps  
  
caused two torches to flare up and light themselves, the door swung open  
  
to reveal a super bright light that flared out and filled the valley and  
  
made the fog disappear in a matter of seconds as he stood there shielding  
  
his eyes from the sudden glare.  
  
Ranma flipped off the step and landed in a combat crouch the  
  
instant the light seemed let his eyes adjust and cursed his hesitation in the  
  
face of danger, but when nothing came out except light he waited for it to   
  
calm down to a tolerable level and jumped right up to the top of the steps.   
  
His danger sense was going off wildly, but he couldn't place where it was   
  
coming from so he inched his way towards the door. The interior of the   
  
building was one large room with a polished stone floor. He could see the   
  
ceiling reflecting off the polish. He entered and looked around, his danger   
  
sense went off the scale and he began to sweat and he wondered what   
  
was so dangerous about this place that this could even happen. He was   
  
walking into something, but he had to see if there was someone here.   
  
He felt it in his soul now and knew that this was the only place to get   
  
his answers.  
  
Torches at the far end of the hall lit up to reveal a large throne with  
  
an equally massive man sitting upon it, he was bent over and had his  
  
head resting on the palm of his hand as if he was bored. His eyes were  
  
closed, but his chest was rising slowly and evenly enough to prove to  
  
Ranma that this giant was alive. He was dressed in ancient battle armor  
  
and there were even some blood stains on it that hadn't been cleaned off  
  
in ages. Ranma took a closer look at the room and noticed that there was  
  
millions of weapons hanging on the walls, slings, staves, swords,  
  
everything imaginable, even guns and bombs of every type in existence.  
  
They all looked brand knew and totally unused, and yet he could feel  
  
that each of them had been used to kill thousands of times. He had no  
  
idea how this was possible, just that it was true, it was one freaky  
  
dream he decided.  
  
"Since this is a dream, are we here to fight?" Ranma yelled.  
  
The giant opened it's eyes and grinned at him. "If you want, I'm always  
  
up for a fight and it had been centuries since I last had a visitor here  
  
in my realm."  
  
"Do you know why I am here?"  
  
"Of course, do you?" The giant said in a mocking tone.  
  
Grrrr. "I need to get back, one of my friends is in trouble."  
  
The giant blinked and chuckled. "You really don't know what is going on  
  
do you?"  
  
"Huh? I just want to get back to help my friends."  
  
"A noble ambition young mortal, but you don't need to worry about the  
  
Scouts, they are safe, they defeated the dog soon after you were taken  
  
out of the fight."  
  
"I was not taken out...I retreated for few minutes." Ranma snapped.  
  
"Oh really? Well I can tell you that you were nearly killed..." Ranma  
  
winced. "...and that the Moon Princess brought you back to life in a very  
  
interesting way indeed. It hasn't been used in over 10,000 years and  
  
even then there were maybe two dozen that had undergone the process."  
  
"What are you talking about and how do you know what is going on?!"  
  
Ranma yelled, something about this guy annoyed him and he wasn't sure what it was.  
  
"I am power incarnate mortal, I am the God Vulcan, the God of Smith and temporary God of War!! If it deals with weapon making I can see it and do what I want with it." Vulcan didn't want to explain just how he had been put in this position, it was too embarrassing to even think about.  
  
"A-a-a-a-God?" Ranma gasped, he knew it was true and it explained the  
  
power he was feeling. For a second he had to resist the urge to turn tail and run, but a portion of his mind told him that doing such a thing would have really bad repercussions.  
  
"We live in people's dreams and souls now-a-days mortal, we are no longer allowed to go physically to the Earth Realm to do what we wish. The Moon Princess saved you by giving you a tiny piece of her soul fused with the power of the Silver Crystal, this brought you to my attention and I summoned you here so that we could talk face to face."  
  
"What did she do to me exactly?"  
  
"She gave you some magic power and infused it into your soul, this has given you some undefined magical abilities like the Scouts have and will allow you to fight along side them when you master the powers that you will wield in battle. I brought you here to finish what she started, I am the last God in the area to gain a Scout and I am offering you a chance to wield my power."  
  
"Why me?"  
  
"You are a fighter and the adaptability that I require in an avatar within the mortal realm."  
  
"Let me get this straight, if I accept you will give me magical powers  
  
and send me back home?"  
  
"No, I will give you a piece of my power and send you home, this  
  
includes a number of forgotten martial art attacks and Ki attacks that you haven't even dreamed of. It will also give you control of that transformation you do. Cold water will no longer be problem and with time you will be able to shift forms at will. It will just take concentration and practice."  
  
"Will I have to be a girl at the time an'wear one of those, gag,  
  
outfits that the others wear?"  
  
"No, those outfits were created millennia ago and were created for a  
  
specific purpose, it is long past time they were altered, but tradition  
  
is hard to break. You can be my Scout in either form while wearing a more  
  
modern armor that I have created, it will shift to fit you in male or female form and able to survive quite a bit of damage with little or no damage. It will also have the same magical fields that keep other from figuring out who you are when transformed."  
  
A picture of Usagi about to be killed by that dog thing flashed through  
  
Ranma's mind and he shivered in fear. He was being given a chance to  
  
protect her, but the price was a little to much to believe. One is never  
  
given anything for free, there is always a price down the line no matter how good the deal seems to be. His father's action were living proof of that little statement. "I don't know, this seems to be to good to be true and I know from experience, that is a bad thing."  
  
"It's not that simple boy, this is just a beginning of a long journey  
  
for you. The Princess is nearing the time when she reaches her full  
  
power and will need a protector. The old one was the one that caused her  
  
all that pain the other day, even I can't see into his mind to see why he is  
  
trying to hurt the girl his soul has been bound with for over ten thousand years. I only know that he has broken that link in a way that can not be repaired or forgiven, you are being given a chance to take his place."  
  
"He went by Tuxedo Mask." A glowing version of Tuxedo Mask appeared in front of Ranma and he gaped at it. Then he giggled and broke out in laughter that had him rolling on the floor, tears streaming down his  
  
face.  
  
"I-I'm sorry but I refuse if I have to look like that...snicker...hahahahah!"  
  
"Boy, I told you I would give you something more up to date than this  
  
ridiculous costume."  
  
To Be Continued... 


	4. Venus Love Beamblush

**********  
  
The Replacement  
  
Chapter 03 - Venus Love Beam...blush!  
  
Warning-this chapter contains scenes of the scouts running around naked  
  
or in various stages of undress...  
  
By C. Rose  
  
ertle2@msn.com  
  
(c)2001  
  
**********  
  
"A better kind of armor?" Ranma mumbled as he tried not to look at the ridiculous outfit this Tuxedo Mask person was wearing. He looked like he was made up to go out to a wedding or a dance, not wade into a fight to kill demons and monsters. "What kind of armor are you talking about here?"  
  
Vulcan waved his hand and a stone nearly the size of a small mountain appeared between him and Ranma. There was this feeling of strength and power suddenly filling the room that Ranma instantly recognized as a magical aura. The stone glowed a bright blue and seemed to fill his soul with a feeling of peace and contentment, but there was also this promise of power that he found very tempting to ignore. It had taken the place of Tuxedo Masks image, it's image alone was enough to fill him with wonder. It was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen, and it was calling to him.  
  
"What do you think?" Vulcan asked, eyebrow raised.  
  
"I've never seen anything quite like it before, but what does this have to do with the armor you were talking about?"  
  
"That is the Star of Vulcan, or Vulcan's Soul, the last remaining piece  
  
of what was once my very own planet. It's rubble is now known in this modern age as an asteroid belt. This is the only survivor of the cataclysm that destroyed the planet millennia ago, it has been waiting for the perfect  
  
warrior to represent it in battle and among the other Scouts. I will be forging your armor out of it's magical properties."  
  
"How will I compare to the other Scouts, will I be able to match them  
  
or keep up with them during a fight?"  
  
"Yes, like the asteroid belt, your abilities are spread all over the  
  
place, each growing in power every time you practice them or use them in battle. You will also have an edge that Tux Boy doesn't, he was a reborn Prince of Earth and not a Scout, and so he never really had much in the way of power. It takes a female soul to be a Scout and with your curse you have the needed soul to access the powers of Vulcan. Every Scout has a male counterpart represented somewhere, you will be both halves in one body and the ultimate fighter for the rebirth of the Moon Kingdom."  
  
"That all sounds very good, but you have yet to tell me the down side  
  
to this?"  
  
"Foolish mortal, the price as you call it, is to bind yourself to  
  
Serenity's destiny and make sure it comes to pass. This will give you  
  
near immortality and all the problems and benefits that go along with  
  
that. That blonde girl will be the Queen of the Earth one day and must  
  
have a strong King by her side, whether it is you or Tux Boy doesn't  
  
matter in the end so long as she is able to ascend the throne one day and fulfill many, many prophesies. She will bring about the next evolution of mankind and a thousand years of peace and prosperity for the entire planet. The price is a never ending battle that you and the Scouts will handle time and again just to make sure that the world stays at peace, war and blood shed will be on your shoulders so that others will not have to do it!"  
  
Ranma smirked, he liked the sound of that more than he liked. "Agreed!"  
  
Vulcan nodded and smiled as Ranma felt his being filling with power  
  
beyond anything he had ever encountered. Images and knowledge filled his mind faster than he could assimilate it and he fell to his knees in  
  
shock and passed out, his body vanishing from sight. As a bright blue light seemed to come from his very skin and turn him into a living star for several seconds. As the light faded away Ranma's body was gone.  
  
**********  
  
Ranma's eyes snapped open and he gasped out in shock and realized that he was now awake. That had been one weird dream. He lay there for several seconds trying to get his bearings before he noticed something out of place, the ceiling was closer than it should have been. This thought woke him up with a start and he found himself hovering several feet off the bed in his t-shirt and boxers.  
  
'What the hell?!' Ranma thought just as whatever was holding him up  
  
gave out and dropped him. He hit the bed with a loud grunt and the end  
  
of the bed collapsed with a crunch of metal. Ranma bounced off the edge and landed on his face at the foot of the bed, he groaned in pain.  
  
Crawling to his feet, Ranma shook his head to clear it of the impact  
  
shock, Usagi and Makoto came running into the room in a panic.  
  
"Ranma, are you...Eppp!" Usagi said and froze, Makoto didn't even get any words out of her mouth as she ran into the room and copied Usagi. Their eyes doubled in sized and they turned bright red as they looked down Ranma's body, taking in his well muscled frame and god like beauty. They went lower and gasped at his...size...DROOL!  
  
Both girls were flushed and their eyes were riveted to something behind  
  
him, Ranma thought and turned around. There was nothing there except a pair of his boxers hanging off the side of a dresser. There was nothing  
  
unusual about...this wasn't his room, why would a pair of his boxers just  
  
be hanging there like that? He looked down to see himself hanging  
  
freely, there was a weird sound behind him and he spun around in  
  
combat crouch, ready for anything. Completely forgetting he was naked from the waist down.  
  
Usagi and Makoto were staring up at him awe, right at his...thing. They  
  
were drooling and glassy eyed, Rei and Ami had walked in while he was looking around and they were staring at him too, both were flushed and speechless, their eyes glued to his...thing. Ranma's mind worked fast, faster than it ever had before in fact as he went from confused, to  
  
shock, to Amaguriken speed dressing with a little scream.  
  
"It's so..." Usagi said, little hearts in her eyes.  
  
"Yeah..." The girl's echoed.  
  
Ranma went from being almost naked to fully clothed in the blink of an  
  
eye and glared at the girls. To bad the outfit he had borrowed from that Tenchi guy was nearly ripped to shreds. There wasn't much left to hid his dignity, then he glanced over at the girls and wondered two things. Who had undressed him and how he could wake up with his boxers on and then have them suddenly vanish between the ceiling and the floor.   
  
Then he glanced over at the girls again, they were all blushing and lost in this daze like world that had captured them completely. He edged his way around the girl's and out of the room as silently as he could, they  
  
didn't budge in the slightest. Ranma's stomach growled loudly, letting  
  
him know that it needed food, now. It was the perfect distraction he needed to get away from the girls and head headed down the short hallway. He looked around for few minutes and eventually found the kitchen, it was a little small, but good enough for his tastes. He raided the refrigerator and made up a large sandwich, it lasted for all of five seconds before he started making up another one.  
  
Eventually the girl's found him in the kitchen and they all tired to  
  
talk to him at once, failing miserably as their eyes went glassy and they giggled a lot. Ranma could hear his mom going on about him being so damned manly and for once agreed, even Ukyo hadn't reacted like this the few times she had seen him naked. Akane had screamed and ran, while Shampoo had snuck into his bed that first night for quick feel. Then he noticed his just how bad his clothing was and shuddered as he suddenly recalled what had happened to him, getting beat up by a stupid monster wasn't fun. He had failed to even protect the girl's...  
  
"R-Ranma..." Started a blushing Usagi.  
  
"Usagi, I'm sorry I failed you, I need to find a way to get some more  
  
power or better techniques. I won't be of much help if I'm nearly killed  
  
in every battle." Ranma said, thinking of his dream.  
  
"Ranma...you didn't fail, no human can fight those things no matter how  
  
strong they are." Usagi said, she was still blushing. She couldn't look  
  
Ranma in the eye, just thinking about what she had seen made her heart  
  
race and she blushed even more. Her mind had already filled the sight under things to see a few more times with a request for better details.  
  
"T-that's right Ranma, these things are far stronger than a normal  
  
human, you can't be expected to even hurt them with out magical powers." Ami said as she donned her glasses and pulled out her computer, she wanted to scan the hunk...er, Ranma. His curse fascinated her and now that she had met him in both forms she wanted to know more about him, how he worked...how big he was. Blush, were in the world did her mind come up with these odd thoughts. At least she didn't voice it out loud.  
  
"We work as a team to defeat these things Ranma, not one on one like  
  
you tried to do, and even then we have trouble defeating these things  
  
from time to time." Rei said as she fiddled with her fingers and failing  
  
in her attempt not to blush, her heart was beating far faster than it  
  
usually did. She had never actually seen a naked man before and it was making her feel weird.  
  
Usagi nodded.  
  
**********  
  
Back in the bedroom Ranma had woken up in, Makoto was doing something to relieve her growing desire, she was holding his boxers in her hand and grinning in such a way that most of her friends would have been worried about her. He didn't look like her old boyfriend Freddy, he outclassed that bum in every way she could see. She finished stealing his underwear, he had forgotten to put them on when he dressed, and snuck out of his room. If Usagi thought she wasn't going to try and grab this hunk, she had better think again.  
  
**********  
  
Ranma watched at the girl's stuttered their way through various things  
  
and looked deep inside himself. Even after over two years he still found girls to be a total enigma, they just didn't' make sense to him no matter how much he tried to understand them. Then he noticed something that and it surprised him quite a bit, his aura had changed and was far more focused than it had ever been and he nearly gasped out loud at the  
  
amount of strength that it held. He searched his memories and found that he had an intimate knowledge of over twenty different styles of martial arts, sixteen of which he didn't even recognize. Of the Ki attacks, he found five new attacks, but to learn them was going to mean a lot of training. His body had the knowledge and the potential, but he would have to be the one to learn how put that knowledge to use.  
  
That dream had been real? Then he must have those powers that guy had mentioned to him, but how was he to use them. He didn't even feel all that different, but there was something just out of reach and he knew that if he stretched out in just right way, he could just touch it. Finishing off his second sandwich with a few quick bites, he smiled at Usagi and headed out of the kitchen. "Usgai, where did you guys bring me?"  
  
Usagi blinked and giggled nervously. "Were at Rei's temple, Ranma."  
  
He nodded and turned to Rei. "Is there anyplace I can practice my Art?"  
  
"Your martial arts?" Asked the still flustered dark haired beauty.  
  
"Yep."  
  
Rei gulped and nodded, she motioned for him to follower her and soon  
  
led him out back, behind the shrine and to a small clearing that was sectioned off from the rest of the grounds. She pointed out the area and explained that was where her grandfather practiced all the time. "Just out there."  
  
"Thanks Rei, I should just be a few hours or so. I need to work out some sore muscles and get in today's practice." Ranma said and smiled at her and walked out to the small area and started to warm up.  
  
"Gah!" Rei said, her knees weak as she staggered back to the temple.  
  
"Usagi, where did this hunk come from?!" Rei yelled.  
  
"I've already told you everything Rei." Usagi said.  
  
"I've never seen a man that handsome in my life." Sighed Ami.  
  
"I'll say." Makoto said as she walked into the kitchen. "Where is he  
  
anyway?"  
  
"He's out back practicing his martial arts." Rei said as she slumped  
  
down into a chair, she had never had a man affect her like this before.  
  
"Oh my god!!" Usagi said a she looked out the window, she was watching Ranma as he bounced all over the yard. The other girls crowded in behind her and watched in awe.  
  
"Usagi is this what you did to him with that Senshi Seed?" Rei asked.  
  
"No Rei, this is his skill in the Art, as he calls it." Ami said and  
  
held pointed the her computer. "I've had that scanning him for several  
  
minutes now and it is picking up extra energy in him, but nothing a  
  
regular human couldn't do if they trained hard for a few years. The  
  
computer says he knows how to use his Ki or life force energy to do  
  
things like this, it was well documented in the Silver Millennium. Remember when he fired those balls of energy at the dog creature yesterday? That was an example of his Ki."  
  
"His Ki? Like what I use in my fire readings?"  
  
"Somewhat, but what he's doing is a thousand times more powerful. This used to be somewhat more common back when the Silver Millennium still existed in the ancient days, but over the years has been almost totally forgotten because of modern technology, the deaths of masters who knew how to train people to use it, and several other less known reasons."  
  
"Look at that, he's making thirty and forty foot high jumps like it was  
  
nothing, and he just hangs there for a few seconds moving at those  
  
incredible speeds." Rei gasped. "If he's like this now, what will he be  
  
when that Senshi Seed is activated?"  
  
"Um...actually, the seed is already activated." Usagi said quietly, her  
  
eyes glued to Ranma, she was breathing a little heavier than normal.  
  
"What?" Said Ami, looking at her computer.  
  
"I felt it last night when we were discussing Ranma, I forgot about it  
  
until now."  
  
"So what happened?"  
  
"He accepted the powers of the planet Vulcan."  
  
"What planet Vulcan, there is no planet Vulcan Meatball Head?!!" Yelled Rei.  
  
"It's an asteroid belt now, out beyond Mars, or something."  
  
"Where did you learn all this?" Rei growled out.  
  
"The crystal told me." Usagi said as she pointed at her locket. "It  
  
showed me his dreams and what he did."  
  
Suddenly all the girls jump to their feet as they hear a loud crash of  
  
pottery. Artemis fly's by the kitchen door in white blur, hits the  
  
kitchen tile, loses his footing, and yowled as he skidded across the floor  
  
and into the wall with a thud. "Run girls, run!" He yells just before  
  
heading out the back door and disappearing into the bushes along the  
  
side of the Shrine. They hear a loud giggling as Minako stumbled into  
  
the kitchen, there are shards of pottery in her hair and her eyes  
  
are a little maniacal.  
  
Then they all notice that she is clad in only a towel that is  
  
threatening to fall to the floor. She breezed past them all, still  
  
giggling, and stepped out the back door. The girl's followed behind her as  
  
she locked onto Ranma as he practices and calmly walked towards him, her eyes still a little wild. As she drew closer it was obvious that Ranma  
  
hadn't seen her yet, though Minako did drop into the clipped grass and  
  
crawled towards him in a combat crawl. This was a little difficult in a  
  
towel and the other girl's blushed when they caught a glimpse of  
  
something naughty.  
  
Then gasped as she pounced on Ranma and tackled him. "What a MAN!" She yelled and started to rub herself against him, letting the towel fall away.  
  
"Help!" Ranma yelled as he tired to get out of there, but Minako's had  
  
a grip of steel as she clutched his leg and drooled. Usagi, Rei, Ami,  
  
and Makoto rushed forward to pull her away, but she wouldn't let go.  
  
"Mine!!" Minako yelled.  
  
The girl's pulled harder and finally drug Minako off Ranma, but she  
  
took his sweat pants with her, ripping them off and destroying them completely. They all froze in shock as a second glimpse of what Ranma had to offer and the girl's all blushed, their eyes glazing over again.  
  
Makoto fingered the boxers in her pocket and smiled sweetly, she  
  
stepped forward, caressed Ranma's leg, and smiled at him. The girl's all moaned and pounced on him, but he screamed and was ten yards away in the blink of an eye. He headed into the temple, ducked into the kitchen with the girl's hot on his heels.  
  
'I hate my life.' Ranma thought as he ran for it and completely failed to notice the sudden reddish glow that the girls were giving off for a few brief seconds when they touched Minako.  
  
**********  
  
Ten minutes later, Ranma was sneaking down the temple stairs. She was a girl again and had borrowed some clothes from Rei's room using the Umien-ken techniques. She was wearing a shinto outfit that she had modified as quickly as she could, Rei was taller than she was and that meant that the thing was tight in some places and baggy in others and she had been forced to make some quick alterations using the belt. She was barefoot, but figured that it was better than being attacked by all those girls, they were giving her the creeps. Ranma shuddered and caught a quick glimpse of yellow out of the corner of her eye and jumped straight up just as Minako tried to tackle her again. She landed and grabbed Minako before she tumbled down the stairs, tapped her sleep point, and laid her in the bushes a few feet away.  
  
"What the hell is with these girls?" Ranma asked herself as she made her way through the trees off to the side of the shrine.  
  
All was quiet as she rested against a tree and tried to figure out what  
  
was happening, but didn't get much of a chance as Rei blindsided her  
  
with a bucket of hot water and a lecherous grin. She had unbuttoned her shirt to let her red bra show. Ranma backed away in fear. Now male, in a dress, he had very few options left so he turned to run...and ran right into a topless Makoto. She was twirling his boxers on her finger and had this look in her eye that sent a chill down his spine.  
  
"Come to me you gorgeous hunk, I can't wait any more." Rei gasped out and undid her bra, and made a grab for him as she giggled.  
  
"Don't listen to that hussy Ranma-hunk, I want you so bad I had to  
  
start early." Makoto said and caressed her nipple, she moaned.  
  
He jumped straight up, spun on a branch and used it as a spring board  
  
to the next. He vanished out of the area with the two girl's chasing after  
  
him yelling strange comments. A few seconds later he spotted the shrine  
  
again and landed on top of the gate and took a few seconds to look around. It was quiet now, far to quiet in his opinion. He jumped off the gate just as Sailor Mercury landed, and for just a second their eyes met and could see that hers were filled with a level of lust that even Shampoo had never been able to achieve.  
  
"Don't run Ranma, I just want to make you feel good!" Mercury yelled.  
  
"Don't wanna!" Ranma yelled back as he bounced off the roof and  
  
continued to run. Mercury jumped after him, giggling quietly, her eyes  
  
glazed and sparkling.  
  
She stopped for a second and fired a blast at him, but he dodged and  
  
watched as it hit a tree. It was engulfed in a white fog that crystallized  
  
the entire thing in milliseconds, he didn't have time to stop or adjust  
  
his angle as he slammed into it feet first and felt it shatter the  
  
instant he hit it. It threw his timing off and he crashed to the ground  
  
and the crystallized shards rained down around him. Several of the pieces were large enough to cut or pierce him when they hit, so he was covered in cuts as he dug himself out a few seconds later.  
  
"Ooops! Didn't mean to use that much power." Mercury said as she landed on him, quickly kissed him, and reached down the front of the shrine maiden outfit to grasp his manhood. She stuck her tongue in his mouth and blinked as Ranma suddenly rolled them over and he vanished right out of her arms. "Don't go! I need you to scratch a special itch of mine you stud!"  
  
Ranma shuddered, these girl's were crazy, that's what they were. A  
  
little voice in the back of his head was telling him something different  
  
though, but he was ignoring it though. It was telling him that there was  
  
evil in the area and that it was affecting most everyone. He landed from  
  
his jump and vanished into the trees, Mercury hot on his tail. She was  
  
flushed and gasping for air as she ran, her blue hair glistening in the  
  
sun light.  
  
For the third time he skidded to a halt in the front area of the  
  
Shrine, looking around desperately for a way to escape. Mercury tackled him from behind, wrapped herself around him, and started to kiss all over his ears and neck. Each one more passionate than the last. She vanished as a topless Makoto tackled her off of him with Rei's help half a blink later. The two girl's were even more scantily clad now, wearing only their panties, socks, and shoes. It was too much and Ranma grabbed his nose to keep the blood in, for once he felt like a pervert.  
  
He slid to a stop as he finally spotted Usagi dressed as Sailor Moon,  
  
she looked out of it. Her eyes were glazed like the others and she was  
  
breathing a lot harder than she should have been. Ranma gulped and  
  
backed away, in the back round the scouts were fighting each other tooth and nail. "U-Usagi? Are you alright?" Ranma stuttered out.  
  
"I need you...Ra-n-ma." Usagi said seductively, smiling bright enough  
  
to darken the sun.  
  
Gulp. "Now lets talk about this Usagi, t-this doesn't have to happen  
  
like this."  
  
"Oh no, studmuffin, your going to be pleasing all of us tonight."  
  
Ranma starts to sweat, he looks around nervously when the other girls  
  
stop fighting and crawl over to him. There was this look in their eyes  
  
that said about the same thing Usagi had said, he backed up some more. His danger sense was screaming at him to fight back, but he couldn't bring himself to hurt them. Words filled his head and he back flipped to the top of the Shrine in a graceful arc, he yelled out the words in mid flip.  
  
"VULCAN KNIGHT SENSHI, MAKE UP!!"  
  
Ranma felt his aura surge with power and expand out in a flash of bight  
  
blue light that seemed to shred the outfit he was wearing. When it receded, he had landed on the roof dressed in a blue version of the outfits that Jedite and the others had worn, a cape of blue and a white inner lining, a blue face mask that covered his eyes and cheeks,  
  
but left his hair wild and free, and a small blue glowing jewel on left  
  
breast of his outfit. It pulsed in time with his heart beat and he could  
  
feel it's strength and power. As the mask finished forming he noticed that each of the Scouts had this pink aura covering them as they stared up at him hungrily. They seemed to be breathing it in too.  
  
'That had to be what was causing them to act this way', he thought after a couple seconds thought. 'But how in the world do I get them back to normal?' He had several attacks he could use to subdue them, but none of them seemed to be what he needed to cure them of this odd behavior. Most of the attacks were offensive anyway and strong enough to level buildings just like the girls below him could. Suddenly his mask turned into a TV and a small list of information begins to scroll down one side of his vision, little details on each of the Scouts, their powers, and how to counter them if needed.  
  
Down on the ground all the girl's are looking up at him with little  
  
hearts in their eyes, drool running off their chins. They all squeal and  
  
jump around in joy, Moon and Mercury jump up onto the roof and move to grab him. Ranma spins and taps Mercury in the chest with the toe of his boot. She drops to the roof tiles instantly asleep with a blush on her cheeks and a perverted grin. Moon doesn't even react as Ranma  
  
reaches out and snags the crystal off her chest and tapping her sleep  
  
point. This point was little different than the one that Happosai normally used, this one would put them to sleep until he countered it or two weeks go by for it to wear off. He catches her and picks up Mercury before jumping to the ground.  
  
"Muffin!" Rei yelled and glomped him.  
  
"Mine!" Yelled Minako as she just appeared, rubbing her naked body all over him and purring.  
  
"Come here you giant Stud." Makoto says, swaying her hips in Ranma's face, he shuddered as he taps all three girl's sleep points in quick succession. They drop in a pile around him and tries to think of something to do with them while dragging a perverted thought to the back of his mind and beating the hell out of it. He wished he had thought of using that little trick earlier, but he had been too panicked to think straight.  
  
Ranma laid Usagi out on the ground and checked the information in his  
  
visior again, it details an ability of Usagi's that will help all of them get better. He has no idea how the thing knows this, but so far it's helped him quite a bit so he decides to use the device's suggestion. For it to work he will have to get Usagi to work the crystal, but how can he do that? He shrugs and decides to see just how gone the girl's really are. He taps the counter point and shakes Usagi awake, she opens her eyes and they fill with hearts.  
  
"Yes!" She yells and glomps him.  
  
"Usagi, listen to me!"  
  
"Take those pants off, I want you all to my self." She kissed him and  
  
ran her tongue over his lips. Ranma shudders as a chill of desire flows  
  
down his spine, it takes all his will power to keep his cool.  
  
"Usagi, calm down and think! I need you to use your healing attack."  
  
"Kiss me!"  
  
"No!"  
  
"Make love to Me!" Usagi said, her eyes smoldering.  
  
Ranma changed tactics and hoped she wouldn't take it personally.  
  
"Alright, but only after you cure yourself and your friends of this  
  
problem Usagi."  
  
Usagi squeals, suddenly kisses him like he had never been kissed in his life, and jumped up. She grabbed the crystal out of Ranma's hand and fired a blast of energy into the sky. "Moon Healing Escalation!!" It rained healing energy down on all of them for several seconds before some of them moaned, sat up, and shook their heads as the world started to come into focus again. Moon dropped to her knees and started to cry. "What have I done?" She whispered.  
  
"Are you all better now Usagi?" Ranma asked.  
  
Sniffle. "Yes, now that this horrid attack is over with."  
  
Ranma unhooked his cape and draped it over the naked girls, his mask was showing that the pink energy was now gone. Whatever it had been seemed to have been destroyed with Usagi's attack, hopefully it wouldn't cause anymore trouble. "Let's get the girl's inside Usagi, I don't think they want to wake up in the front yard while dressed like this."  
  
"Alright."  
  
Within a few minutes all the Scouts were inside and laid out across  
  
Rei's bed. Once inside they had all quickly fallen asleep, so Ranma and Usagi made their way over to the front room and sit down on the couch. They had detransformed once inside so Ranma had taken the time to pour some cold water on himself, that shrine maiden outfit just wasn't for a guy. Usagi had giggled at him for a few minutes when she saw him.  
  
"Do you know what happened?" Ranma asked.  
  
"It's Minako's fault, I talked to her a little while ago when you  
  
ducked out of the room to grab some cold water. She woke up for a few seconds."  
  
"So what happened?"  
  
"She was taking a bath when she had this flashback of her previous life  
  
and realized that she had this new power. She really is the Scout of  
  
Love you see, she fired off this Love Beam attack by accident in the bathroom. It bounced off the mirror and bounced back to hit her in the chest, she then noticed you beginning your practice and went into this super lust mode. The attack is supposed to be used on a large number of individuals to distract them with overwhelming...um, need. She was lucky she had that towel on before she fired that beam too, otherwise she probably would have jumped you even quicker."  
  
"Did she get you girls with it too?"  
  
"No, we touched her and it affected us too. Nothing would have happened, I think, if she hadn't ripped your pants off like that, it was to much to take after what had happened earlier." Usagi blushed.  
  
"Ah...well I've got a problem now, I need new clothes." Ranma muttered, turning a little red.  
  
"You can always borrow ours Ranma, that outfit looks good on you, even better than it did on Rei."  
  
Ranma blushed. "Thanks, I think."  
  
Usagi just giggled and kissed him on the cheek, blushing even more.  
  
"Thanks for not giving into what we wanted to do to you Ranma, it means more than you know." Usagi giggled again. "Though it may have been a lot of fun!"  
  
Ranma blinked, stared at Usagi, and had to grab his nose before he fainted.  
  
Usagi giggled some more and ran to the kitchen to finish off Makoto's  
  
cookies and muffins. She had found out what so many other girl's had  
  
found when dealing with Ranma in either form. It was fun to tease him,  
  
mercilessly, and at every opportunity that popped up. Her and the others were going have to come up with some ideas on the subject, though she did have to admit that having Ranma around was a lot more fun than...whatshisname.  
  
**********  
  
To Be Continued...Maybe...  
  
Note - Why did I write up this chapter? Well I actually ran into a wall  
  
just after deciding what to so with Ranma's new costume and I needed  
  
some thing to get through my mental block and a slightly hentai chapter  
  
just seemed to be the way to go. It also seemed to fit in with Ranma's  
  
unique ability to turn totally normal situations into the most insane  
  
thing that could happen, hence Minako pulling his pants off ^^;  
  
The costume had to fit in with the SM cast without being to flashy or  
  
calling to much attention to him while he was helping the girls. So I  
  
used the uniform that Endymion's generals used, Jedite and so forth, but  
  
I added the cape and mask to give him a more menacing personality while  
  
he was fighting. I will be giving him some special gadgets to use as  
  
weapons with his more modern outlook on things, he will also have to  
  
take up some weird weapon just to fit the image of TM in some ways.  
  
We'll see what I come up with...his cursed form transformation will be  
  
some thing new as well...maybe...^^ 


	5. And so it begins

**********  
  
The Replacement  
  
Chapter 04 - And so it begins...  
  
By C. Rose  
  
ertle2@msn.com  
  
(c) 2001  
  
**********  
  
Ranma's eyes snapped open and he shuddered, that dream of Usagi and her friends had been plaguing him all night. It was like he was being punished   
  
for not taking advantage of them or something. He had been dreaming about  
  
one or more of the Scouts trying to seduce him, the ones about Ami were the  
  
most unusual since she had come the closest to getting him and bore such a close resemblance to Akane when she was angry about one thing or another. Ranma rolled out of bed and yawned his way over to the bathroom the shrine sported. Through experience he looked to see if the occupied sign was out, but didn't see one, so he knocked on the door to the furo and waited. Still no answer.  
  
He opened the door a crack and peaked inside, visions of Akane's mallet  
  
fighting about his head. When nothing happened he opened his eyes and  
  
sighed as he saw the room was ready for use, but empty. He stripped down and poured cold water over his head with a shiver as the curse took effect. She worked with the soap for several minutes before repeating the process, rinsing herself off, and settling down into the furo with a long sigh as she shifted back into a man once more. Ranma leaned back and wondered what this day would bring for him; he knew he couldn't stay here too much longer. The Tendo's and his parents were probably worried about him by now, not that they had ever shown that they cared about him personally, just the things that he could bring them. He was a bargaining chip to keep the schools going and allow two old men to retire early.  
  
Rei had offered him a chance to stay at the shrine, but after what had  
  
happened yesterday he was feeling unwelcome when ever the other girl's were  
  
around. They had woken up and been very cold to him, barely tolerating his  
  
presence whenever he was in the same room as them. Eventually he had left  
  
and vanished for the rest of the day. He had spent it wandering around the  
  
district and trying to come up with a way to survive without going back to  
  
the Tendo's place and admitting defeat. That option didn't thrill him to much; he didn't want to go back to that painful life style again. He had made some friends here, though he was beginning to wonder if that one bright point was now in ashes do t what had happened yesterday and the way the girls were treating him. It wasn't his fault they were affected by that beam, only Usagi and Ami had been even remotely nice to him after everyone woke up, the others had been quite as they kept glaring holes in his back. He wondered if they were mad at him for not taking advantage of the situation or something. It wouldn't be the first time he got in trouble for doing what he thought would be the best for everybody.  
  
By the time he returned to the shrine, he had snuck into the room Rei had given him for the night and quickly gone to bed. Now he was up and needed to make some decisions, the first had already been made. He would be leaving the shrine today, after yesterday he was sure he wasn't wanted around there anyway and he sure wasn't welcome here anymore. He sighed and stood up to grab his towel, the door to the furo opened and a naked Rei stepped inside. A flash of dejavu swept over Ranma even as Rei noticed him and her eyes took in every detail of his hardened body, she blushed and started to scream at the same time, and then she started throwing buckets and other nearby implements of destruction at him.  
  
"DIE PERVERT!!!" Rei yelled as she dove for cover, her towel barely hiding  
  
her naked body.  
  
"Hey, stop that!" Ranma yelled, dodging a spear for some odd reason as it embedded itself into the wall behind him.  
  
"DIE!!" A hair brush bounces off Ranma's head.  
  
He twists and dodges for several seconds, hops out of the furo, grabs his  
  
towel and runs out of the room even while he is tying it around is waist.  
  
That's it, he hadn't asked to be treated this way, and it hadn't been his fault!  
  
He makes it to his room just as Rei hits him in the head with a bucket of  
  
water and turns him into a girl. Now a topless female with a towel wrapped around her waist, she grumbles about pissing off all the Kami in existence and crawls the last few feet and slams the door shut. Ranma groans as she pulls herself to her feet and dresses in the outfit that she had been loaned the night before. It was made for a girl's body, so it fit her better than his clothing usually did. She had been given a pair of black jogging pants, a black t-shirt, a bra from Makoto and the return of her boxers. She dressed quickly and jumped out the window.  
  
She took to the woods around the shrine and made her way out of the area  
  
via the trees, these soon developed into houses and she hopped over roof  
  
tops and along fences until she found a small park to land in. It had a  
  
small lake with several families using it as a quite spot to catch some  
  
fish, it reminded her of the last trip she had made with her father and the  
  
Tendos when she had been training. She found a good spot and sat down against a tree and thought about what she would need the most over the next few days. Money was the first thing she came up with after a few moments thought. With that she could get anything she wanted, food, shelter, clothing, but how to go about getting it, it wasn't like she had any kind of marketable skill and she needed money fast, not two to four weeks from now. Nabiki had always taken nearly every penny she ever earned as well.  
  
That meant fast money and she had experience with that, the old man had  
  
taught her to be reliant upon no one and shown her more than one way to make a quick buck. The fat idiot had also turned her into a first class thief, but she wouldn't take that rout just yet, there were easier ways to get the cash she needed. That meant she had to fall back on something else, after a few seconds she grinned as it came to her in a flash of memory. She could do what she did best, fight, or in this case, a pit fight. She had attended more than she cared to admit and they were always a good place to get easy and ready cash. As a  
  
martial artist she was also well aware of these little matches too, they  
  
were always looking for good fighters and had invited her to several matches  
  
in the past. All she had to do was contact certain people and she would be  
  
in the next fight that came up, but she would need a little operating capital in the mean time.  
  
Feeling restless, she stood up and started to work through her morning  
  
workout, steadily increasing her speed and skill as she went. Over the  
  
years she had found it was always easier to think while she was training, so  
  
she was soon making thirty foot jumps and pushing herself to the edge. In  
  
her mind she was still thinking about the pit fights, she usually avoided  
  
them unless she had no choice but to deal with them because the fighters that attended them were usually very dishonorable and nasty individuals. That meant she would have to be more careful than usual, in Nerima she dealt with fighters that, though they said otherwise, were not out to kill her, well except maybe Mousse, but he was an Amazon and who could tell with them anyway. If they had been she would have put them down long ago, permanently.  
  
**********  
  
That same morning Usagi had awoken from a deep, restful sleep, feeling a  
  
little weird. She sat up and stretched, looking around her for any sign of a  
  
pissed off cat sharpening her claws. Of Luna, there was nothing, not even her  
  
tail sticking out from beneath the bed. She wasn't on her kitty chair or on  
  
the floor, the door was locked so there was no way for her to have gotten  
  
out easily. Usagi stood up and wondered why she felt so restless, usually  
  
she had to drag herself out of bed at claw point. She shrugged and grabbed  
  
her school uniform and looked at the clock to see how late she was.  
  
The clothes fell out of her hands and she gaped, it was 6am in the morning,  
  
the sun hadn't even come up yet. She started to gripe under her breath and  
  
took a step back to the bed, but stopped when she realized that she felt  
  
fully rested and was actually more hungry than tired. She giggled and  
  
dressed in her pink sweats before heading down stairs and into the kitchen.  
  
It had been a long time since she was up this early on her own and she  
  
wanted something for breakfast that she rarely had time for, pancakes.  
  
Even more amazing was that she remembered how to make them after all this  
  
time, nearly two years or more had passed since those early days of her  
  
cooking lessons with her mom. Soon the house was filled with the smell of  
  
blueberry pancakes, it was all Usagi could do to keep herself from sampling  
  
the raw batter. Her mother stumbled into the kitchen in shock and gaped at  
  
her, blinked several dozen times, and had to stagger over to a chair to sit  
  
down. Usagi giggled and sat a plate of pancakes in front of her.  
  
"W-what a-are you doing up this early?" Ikuko asked in confusion.  
  
"Got me, I just woke up and had this craving for pancakes."  
  
"Y-your never up this early." Ikuko said as she sampled Usagi's pancakes  
  
and grinned, they were pretty good.  
  
"I know, isn't it cool?!"  
  
Her brother stepped into the kitchen, stared at her, and stomped over to the  
  
table to eat an early breakfast. Ikuko giggled, "I think you managed to wake  
  
up everyone in the house."  
  
"Aghhhhhh!" Came her dad's voice as he ran down stairs dressing as he went.  
  
"Why didn't anyone get me up?!" Kenji yelled.  
  
"Dear you don't have to be up for an hour or so, what are you talking  
  
about?" Ikuko said, looking innocent.  
  
"Huh?" Kenji said as he looked at the wall clock and gaped at it, looked at  
  
Usagi, the clock, Usagi...and staggered over the coffee maker muttering evil  
  
things under his breath. Usagi set another plate of pancakes out for him and  
  
cooked up a few dozen more to add to her plate. She was feeling weird,  
  
really energetic for some reason and the food was only making her fidget as  
  
she worked. The Tsukino's watched her move about the kitchen restlessly for  
  
several minutes before she finished off her breakfast and headed up to her  
  
room.  
  
She changed out of her sweats and into her workout clothes, a pair of white  
  
spandex shorts and a tank top, with out even thinking about it. She hopped  
  
out the window and went for a jog to the park just down the road. She could  
  
feel something pulling her there and had the funny feeling that it was one  
  
of her friends. The instant she entered the park she felt this feeling of  
  
contentment wash over her and she gasped as she saw a female Ranma  
  
practicing her martial arts. This was the first time Usagi had seen her  
  
doing this with out a distraction or something interrupting her. Ranma was  
  
the most graceful girl she had ever seen as she flowed from one set of moves  
  
to another, the very sight of her as she moved awed Usagi as she watched. A  
  
few seconds later Ranma looked at her from the top of a high jump and waved  
  
to her as she landed.  
  
"Good morning Usagi!" Ranma said.  
  
"Hi Ranma, that was amazing."  
  
"Thanks, what are you doing out this early?"  
  
"I have no idea, just woke up and had to go and do something to keep myself  
  
occupied."  
  
Ranma laughed. "I'm like that sometimes, it usually allows me to get the  
  
drop on my old man when we spar."  
  
"Could you show me some of that stuff, it was so cool."  
  
"Sure, has anyone ever taught you the basics yet?"  
  
"Makoto taught me some stuff, but at the time I was...um...not really  
  
interested. I did pick up a few things though." Usagi said, blushing a  
  
little.  
  
"Let me see what I have to work with here." Ranma said as she walked around  
  
Usagi and looked at her with her Ki senses. The girl's aura continued to  
  
fascinate him as she looked her over, she had tons of potential. She had  
  
learned from the others that Usagi was a bit lazy and an air head, but she  
  
hadn't displayed any of those traits so far and Ranma really wondered why  
  
the other girl's thought that way about her.  
  
"Well?" Usagi asked nervously.  
  
"Usagi, you have the potential to be as good as me if you were to put your  
  
mind to it, but even if you didn't, you could still be a very good fighter.  
  
All it takes is practice and time."  
  
Usagi's eyes glittered as she stared into Ranma's eyes. "Really?" She  
  
whispered.  
  
"Yep." Said Miss. Oblivious. "Here let me show you some stances and other  
  
simple stuff." After about twenty minutes, Usagi had barely managed to pick  
  
up even the most basic stance and Ranma was about to give up when he  
  
remembered something one of his early teachers had told him. Some students  
  
learn in different ways, some need to be forced and pushed to their limits  
  
just to pick up the most basic move, while others require different and less  
  
painful measures to achieve the same results.  
  
Ranma let Usagi rest for a few minutes as she thought about how to change  
  
the way she was teaching and what she knew about Usagi. It hit her like a  
  
bolt of lightning and she grinned at her friend. "Okay Usagi, lets try  
  
something a little different shall we."  
  
"I'm sorry I'm no good at this stuff, I'm just going to go on home." Usagi  
  
said as she slumped down and walked off dejectedly, her hair was limp as the  
  
the tips dragged on the ground.  
  
"Let's give this one more try Usagi, please?"  
  
The blonde shrugged. "Sure, can't fail anymore than I am now."  
  
Ranma just grinned. "Now take the stance I showed you, okay? Now since your having troubles learning the regular way, I've decided to use an alternative  
  
method that I once saw used. The idea is to learn through instinct and  
  
demonstration while defending "  
  
"Huh?" Usagi got out just as Ranma took up the same stance, showed off a  
  
couple of blocks and winked at her. Ranma grinned as she threw out a lazy  
  
punch that Usagi failed to block, the grin turned evil as she looked in  
  
Usagi's eyes...and tickled her ribs. The blonde backed away as she started  
  
giggling, Ranma was without mercy as he continued to strike out and tickle  
  
her friend.  
  
"No nonononono...hehehehe...nonononono...hehehehe..."  
  
So it went for the next couple of hours, Ranma chasing Usagi as she tried  
  
to run away giggling. Then Usagi tripped over her own feet and splashed  
  
down in the lake, Ranma right on top of her as they both laughed at each  
  
other. They surfaced giggling and Ranma threw a punch at her, but Usagi  
  
blocked it with out thinking.  
  
"See, alternative training methods."  
  
Usagi blinked and realized that she had been defending herself at faster and  
  
faster speeds as they 'played', she had moved her feet in the ways Ranma  
  
showed her almost instinctively, blocked her strikes and dodged around her  
  
strikes easily. "Wow! Is that what..."  
  
"That wasn't like any kind of fight I've ever been in Usagi, I can't lie to  
  
you, most fights are 'Fights' and deal in pain. But there are lots of ways  
  
to work around the training, we'll just have to make it fun for you."  
  
Usagi giggled some more as they made their way out of the water, dripping  
  
wet. Ranma followed her and nearly tripped over her feet when she noticed  
  
something about Usagi that made her blush. Usagi had been wearing a white  
  
tank top, it was now soaked through and her sports bra was plainly visible,  
  
her shorts were in the same condition. The sight was so provocative that  
  
Ranma had to turn away and hold her nose.  
  
"What's wrong Ranma?" Usagi asked worriedly.  
  
"Y-your clothes...urk..." Ranma stuttered through a full face blush.  
  
"Huh...EEEEKKKK!!!" Usagi yelled and wrapped her arms around her chest and glared at Ranma.  
  
Ranma sighed and tried to think of a way to help Usagi out, but she wasn't  
  
wearing her normal clothing. "Um...just pull the shirt away a-and wring the  
  
water out of it, t-that should allow you to make it home to change Usagi."  
  
Ranma said nervously, still blushing. Usagi ran over to the small grove of  
  
trees and hid behind the trees as she took her shirt off and rang it out and  
  
put it back on, it only helped a little.  
  
"S-s-s-s-sorry about that Usagi." Ranma muttered.  
  
Usagi sighed, things were always a little weird around Ranma, she thought  
  
to herself. She grinned as she realized that she was actually having a lot  
  
of fun with her friend, then she heard the sound that made her blood run  
  
cold, the worst sound in the entire world...the final bell for school.  
  
"Aghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm late for school!!!!" Usagi screamed and took  
  
off for school, skidded to a halt, glared at her clothes and did a 180 on  
  
the tip of her toe and headed for home at full speed, leaving a dust cloud  
  
behind her. Ranma sighed, she was impressed with Usagi's speed though. She  
  
might be able to use that to the girl's advantage if she wanted to do this  
  
again. Ranma hoped so, it had been tons of fun and even if Usagi hadn't  
  
realized it, they had made great progress.  
  
Ranma grinned as he saw Usagi run by the park a few seconds later and wave at her as she sped by, dodging obstacles as she went. There was this look of astonishment on a number of people's faces that said that she usually tripped over everything in her path. It was going to be a good day, Ranma decided after all. Now she had some rather bad people to visit and she had to prepare herself.  
  
**********  
  
He was big, he was strong, he was a 4th dan in Karate, and he was body slammed  
  
into the wooden floor so hard that it shattered around him and sent pieces  
  
flying everywhere. Ranma grinned down at him and smirked, she had been going easy on him since he wasn't that good. She looked over at the stunned gang member who had set up the pit fight and smiled at him evilly, he almost wet his pants he scrambled to pay her off. Ranma had stumbled across the fight several hours ago while heading to the more dangerous parts of town and  
  
wormed her way into the fight. An idle comment about that that big guy being  
  
pathetic had pissed off the right people and she had challenged him to a  
  
fight. The stakes were simple enough, if she lost she had to 'service' all  
  
of them, whatever that meant, or if she won, she would win all the money for  
  
that days fights. They were that confident, but Ranma could tell that there  
  
wasn't a fighter there in her class.  
  
She had played with the big guy for several minutes, insulting his family  
  
and friends, his body and so forth until he was enraged beyond belief. After  
  
that it was a simple matter to take him out, but she used her fancy moves  
  
just to use something different, the broken nose and shattered floor had  
  
been quite impressive if she said so herself. The gang leader's hands shook  
  
as he handed over nearly 500,000 yen, Ranma narrowed her eyes and started to  
  
glow, he added 200,000 more and paled visibly. She was laughing internally  
  
though, this was bringing back some good memories of the last time she had  
  
done this, though she had never made this much before. Taking the money,  
  
Ranma smiled and jumped clear to a window about twenty feet up and  
  
disappeared through it like smoke.  
  
About an hour later, after finding some hot water, he was at the Juuban  
  
mall buying several outfits at one of his favorite stores. Ranma was a  
  
little irritated too, in his search for hot water he had remembered  
  
something that Vulcan had told him, he was supposed to have control over his  
  
curse. So far he had no idea how to get that control and was more than a  
  
little irritated at that jerk hadn't bothered to tell him how to control it. Cursing under his breath he had decided to go the mall, it would make a great place to stop and pick up some much needed clothing, his usual red and black combination if he could find it. Ranma figured while he was there he would also pick up a few other things as well, and soon had a new backpack, tent, and a number of camping supplies. His final act was to buy several post cards, he was going to be gone for awhile and didn't want them coming after him. He had enough problems with the gang in Nerima and wanted to make sure they stayed there while he was gone. He filled the first one out there in the mall and tossed it into a convenient mail box, it said that he was going on a training trip and that he would be gone for a few months or so. He hoped it would keep them off his back, but doubted it, they had been to quite lately and his disappearance was going to make things worse.  
  
"Ranma!"  
  
He turned and saw Ami heading his way, she had an older woman with her that  
  
was looking him over pretty thoroughly. She looked a little like Akane again and  
  
walked confidently as they headed in his direction. He waved at them and  
  
waited for them to reach them before smiling at Ami. "Hi Ami, what are doing  
  
here?"  
  
"Me and mom needed to pick up a few things for a trip she's taking in a few  
  
days and we thought it would be a good idea to pick them up together since  
  
we don't get to see much of each other anymore." Ami said, she missed her  
  
mother wince behind her. "Mom, this is Ranma Saotome a friend of mine that I  
  
met the other day."  
  
Mrs. Mizuno smiled at him. "It's nice to meet you young man." Ami winced.  
  
"It's nice to meet you too Mrs. Mizuno."  
  
"Here Ami, can you run over there and pick me up some of those herbs?" Mrs.  
  
Mizuno said as she gave her daughter and Ranma a push off in the right  
  
direction. She had noticed her daughter turn a slight shade of red when they  
  
had first spotted the boy a few minutes ago at the mail center. As a trained  
  
doctor and a mother she also noticed the signs of a crush when she saw one  
  
and figured they made a cute couple, anyway, this Ranma was bulging with  
  
delightful muscles that rippled as he moved...blush.  
  
"Sure mom, but where will you be?" Ami asked, she looked a little  
  
flustered.  
  
"Over there dear." The older woman said and gestured to the lingerie  
  
department across the way and waved good by, but winked at her when Ranma wasn't looking. Ami blushed and looked at Ranma out of the corner of her eye, he had to be the most handsome man she had ever seen and it seemed her mother was encouraging her too make a move. Her libido surged and beat up her logical mind, she opened her mouth when...  
  
"So what kind of herbs did she want us to pick out?" Ranma asked  
  
innocently, though he was sweating nervously.  
  
Ami giggled nervously. "...um...well...heheheh..."  
  
"...heh..." Ranma said and blushed a little, rubbing the back of his head.  
  
"L-lets go and grab those things for your mom."  
  
"S-sure."  
  
To avoid further conversation they grabbed up their various packages and  
  
quickly headed into the store, but it became pretty obvious to both of them  
  
that they wanted to avoid certain subjects. Every time they even came close  
  
to each other or looked into each other's eyes they would turn away and  
  
blush in embarrassment. For Ami she was having considerable trouble  
  
controlling the fast-paced beat of her heart every time she even glanced at  
  
Ranma. His very presence was making certain ignored parts of her body  
  
tingle deliciously, it was making her knees shake as she tagged along beside  
  
him picking up the various items on her mothers list.  
  
For Ranma, his reactions were far different than Ami's, he was having  
  
terror filled flashbacks of Akane's mallet coming down on his head out of  
  
nowhere. As he walked along carrying his new backpack and supplies he was  
  
growing more and more nervous with each passing second. His eyes were  
  
shifting around the room constantly checking it for any signs of anything out  
  
the ordinary, his danger sense on high alert, his muscles tensed and ready  
  
for action had a moment's notice because he had been in situations like this  
  
far too many times to count. At the same time he watched Ami out of the  
  
corner of his eye and was reminded again of just how cute she was.  
  
As he was escorting her back to the main counter and to purchase their  
  
items, Ranma was surprised to find that the store carried a very rare herb.  
  
He grabbed a baggy and deposited several dollars worth of the rare  
  
substance into the bag and grinned evilly as visions of his old man danced  
  
in his head after being exposed to this stuff. He figured that if this  
  
stuff was here maybe they would have some of the other items he would need  
  
as well and after doing a quick search through a couple isles he found  
  
several more herbs that he knew would come in handy eventually. Ami followed  
  
him around with a bemused grin on her face.  
  
"Ranma what are you buying?" Ami asked.  
  
"I hadn't expected to find any this stuff actually. They are various items  
  
that I have learned over the years can work wonders for toughing up the body  
  
before and after a hard work out. When mixed together in various small  
  
doses they can also work as a primitive bandage, they are also useful in  
  
playing some very nasty practical jokes." Ranma said as she tried to look  
  
innocent.  
  
"What kind of jokes?" Ami asked in curiosity.  
  
"Well, the one I was thinking of doing pertains to my father and getting  
  
a little bit of revenge on him for what he's done its me over the last few  
  
years."  
  
"Your father is the one that turns into the panda right?"  
  
"Yep, he's the one. Several years ago I was challenged to a Martial Arts  
  
Practical Joke War, it was probably one of the weirdest battles I've ever  
  
had to fight, but I learned a good number of things from the fight that  
  
have taught me some pretty good lessons. As for my father, every now and  
  
then I have to take him down peg or two or his arrogance begins to get out  
  
of control and he's over do for one of our little lessons."  
  
"What are you going to do to him?"  
  
"The last time we fought like this we were staying overnight in this park  
  
where we had decided to set up camp the night before. As usual he tossed  
  
me out of the tent just before dawn and started to use me as a punching bag  
  
while I was still trying to wake up, or sparring as he liked to call it.  
  
That particular morning I was ready for him and managed to throw a handful  
  
of sleep dust into his face while he was in close, the moron actually  
  
inhaled most of it before he realized what he was doing. The fat fool  
  
collapsed at my feet and I didn't waste anytime as I stripped him out of his  
  
clothing and dropped him into the zoo primate exhibit in only his underwear  
  
a few minutes later."  
  
Ami giggled at the image that he was describing for even as they moved  
  
through the checkout line and purchased all their various herbs and  
  
medicines. "I'm thinking this time I'm going to do something more subtle to  
  
him."  
  
"S-so what are you going to do for the rest of today?" Ami said as she  
  
tried to build up her courage again.  
  
"I'm not sure just yet, but I have to find in place to live since I'm no longer welcome at the shrine." Ranma said a little harshly.  
  
"What you mean, of course your welcome at the shrine." Ami said in  
  
confusion.  
  
Ranma shook his head. "Not after what happened yesterday, Rei and the  
  
others have all been giving me the cold shoulder since that little incident.  
  
They've even gotten a little violent and started to threaten me with bodily  
  
harm and calling me a whole array of nasty names. I got enough of that kind  
  
of abuse back with the Tendo's so I have no intention of tolerating it now."  
  
"But that isn't..." Ami started she was interrupted by Ranma.  
  
"Just this morning Rei walked in on me while I was taking a bath and  
  
instantly lost her temper, calling me a pervert and several other names as  
  
she threw everything in the up furo at me. I ended up ducking out of the  
  
bathroom and leaving the temple before the sun was even up this morning.  
  
Even Makoto and Minako were treating me quite badly yesterday, so I decided  
  
to get out of there and start over while I still have a chance."  
  
"Where you going to be staying?" Ami asked.  
  
"I'm not to sure yet, that's the reason I picked up this tent and the  
  
supplies since I figure I'll be camping out the next several weeks before I  
  
make any final decisions where I'm going to stay. If things get really bad  
  
I can always head back to the Tendo's, but I'd rather not get into that mess  
  
again anytime soon."  
  
Ami was confused about how her friends were reacting to the mistake Minako  
  
had made. She could recall that after everyone woke up they had all looked  
  
quite embarrassed and spent most of the night hiding from Ranma and blushing  
  
every time they even caught a glimpse of him nearby. This brought up the  
  
memory of what she herself had done to him under the influence of Venus'  
  
attack, but she quickly moved to push that memory out of her head as she had  
  
been trying to do for the last twenty four hours. She giggled nervously and  
  
looked back up at Ranma's chiseled features and had to again suppress her  
  
raging hormones.  
  
Ranma witnessed a number of expressions race across Ami's face as they  
  
gazed at each other, some he recognized, but most were beyond his  
  
understanding. He was about to say something else when he spotted something  
  
up on the second level of the mall. At first it seemed like nothing, but  
  
then his ears began to pick up one of a few sounds that brought joy to his  
  
world. The sounds and motions of the crowd up above as it began to panic in  
  
shock brought an evil grin to his face as he realized one of his toughest  
  
opponents had decided to resurface after being gone for the last couple of  
  
months. He still wasn't quick enough to deflect the black blur that  
  
launched itself off the second level and bounced off his head and clamped  
  
itself to Ami's breasts.  
  
"Hehehehehehe...SWEETO!"  
  
Ami blinked as she suddenly felt something grab onto her breasts and  
  
squeeze them. She gasped and looked down at this old...thing with a tiny  
  
mustache and a bald head sporting only a few hairs. It was covered in  
  
wrinkles and looked more like a bug than a human being. Suddenly Ranma's  
  
fist flashed through where the old pervert had been, but he had bounced off  
  
her and she stumbled back and felt her breasts suddenly sag down. She caught  
  
sight of the old man holding her...bra and gasped, he had stolen her bra,  
  
without even removing her shirt...Ami seethed as he caressed her bra  
  
lovingly before depositing it in the large sack of underwear on his back.  
  
"Look at this little pretty, it's so soft and full of life, eh Ranma?"  
  
"What are you doing here old man?" Ranma yelled.  
  
"Why you little punk...oh...fancy meeting you here." Happossai said,  
  
grinning lecherously.  
  
"What are you doing in Juuban old man?"  
  
"Where else to can I get away from little punks like you who are always  
  
interfering in my training."  
  
"TRAINING?! What kind of training involves stealing underwear old man."  
  
"My kind of Training, Ranma-chan." Happossai says and produces a bottle of  
  
water.  
  
"You don't actually think that is going to scare me do you?" Ranma grinned  
  
as she saw something coming down the stairs from the second level.  
  
"Who cares about scaring you, I want that great body of yours my dear."  
  
Happossai said and launched forward...  
  
"Lecher!"  
  
"Pervert!"  
  
"Thief!"  
  
"Bleeping little bleep!"  
  
...and gets brained by the pack of angry women that had finally caught up  
  
with him. They were all cursing and yelling, hitting him with various pieces  
  
of sports equipment, what followed was to gruesome to detail. Much to  
  
Ranma's surprise, Ami jumped in a fired off a spiel of cursing that would  
  
have made a real sailor blush. He was suitably impressed and wondered where she had even heard such words before. Eventually the women retrieved their stuff and walked off in a huff. Happossai is contorted into a pretzel and embedded into the floor and groaning in pain. Ranma picks the old pervert up and drop kicks his carcass through the roof of the mall to the cheers of all the  
  
girls the old fart had insulted or groped.  
  
"Are you alright Ami? Ami? Earth to Ami?" Ranma says as he waves his hand  
  
in front of her eyes.  
  
Ami gazes at him, blinks, and...smiles. Her eyes light up and she blushes a  
  
deep red, she gazes longingly at Ranma's hard muscled body and sighs.  
  
Ranma pales and jumps back several feet, she had 'that' look, the one that  
  
said that he done something his mother considered 'manly'. It was the same  
  
look that Ukyo had given a few months ago when he called her cute to calm  
  
her down. What Kami had he pissed off to make his life like this, he tired  
  
to be a good person, he helped out, and what did it get him? Every girl in  
  
existence chasing him around to marry or kill him for something.  
  
"Ranma!" Yelled a familiar voice.  
  
He twitched and looked around to spot Usagi as she came out of nowhere and  
  
skidded to a halt between him and Ami. "Usagi, fancy m-meeting you here?"  
  
"Actually I was supposed to meet Ami, hi Ami, but I got detention for being  
  
late for school." Usagi said, scowled at Ranma, and punched him in the arm.  
  
"What'd you do that for."  
  
"That was for making me late!" She punched him again for good measure.  
  
"Now you owe me an ice cream to make up for it!" Usagi declared and latched  
  
onto his arm.  
  
"No way Usagi, he just saved me, which means he has to get me an ice cream!"  
  
Ami said, latching onto his other arm. It must be understood that Ami spent  
  
a good amount of her time repressing her hormones, so she wasn't exactly  
  
thinking straight.  
  
"What are you talking about Ami?" Usagi asked carefully.  
  
Ami blinked, blushed and jumped back giggling nervously. Off to the side  
  
her mother face faulted at the sight, her daughter was such a book worm  
  
sometimes. Amy stammered out an apology and ran off, he mother in hot  
  
pursuit. Ranma moved to stop her, but Usagi held him in place and demanded  
  
an explanation. "Well?"  
  
"Um...heheh...me and Ami stumbled across each other a little while ago  
  
while...gulp...I was picking up some camping supplies. She had her mother  
  
with her and she asked me to help Ami to pick out some herbs from that story  
  
over there...hehehe...um." Ranma said.  
  
"...and?"  
  
"A pervert came by and stole her bra, felt her up to...I'm not to sure what  
  
I did to make her act like that?"  
  
"Looked like you had quite an affect on her Ranma? I thought you liked me?"  
  
"Of course I like you Usagi, your my friend as much as Ami and the others  
  
are."  
  
"Friend?" Usagi said in a flat tone. "...but I thought you said..."  
  
"Usagi, I know what your saying, but this is a new beginning for me and if  
  
works out I will regain control over my life for the first time in a long  
  
while. I like you, a lot, but I don't want to worry about a...gulp...r-relationship until after I'm out of school. Can't we just be friends until then?" Ranma said, calling on every last bit of his courage.  
  
"I want more."  
  
"I...I..."  
  
"Ranma, I think I understand, but what if something changes between now and  
  
then. I already care for you, deeply, because of the soul bond we share."  
  
"What's a soul bond?" Ranma asked nervously.  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"I don't know what that is."  
  
"I told you all this Ranma. I explained it that day at the shrine."  
  
"I don't remember a thing about it."  
  
"We share a bond that connects us as soul mates Ranma, mother told me that  
  
means that we are destined to be together. I'm not sure about that since  
  
Mamoru is still around here somewhere and I'm still connected to him as well, but we are supposed to be able to complement each other."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Complement each other, we share or reinforce each other when we need it.  
  
It also changes us in ways that make us better people Ranma, we can share  
  
our emotions and stuff. For me, this bond has allowed me to grow more  
  
confident and athletic I think. For you, I figure it will make you more open  
  
and caring, we compliment each other."  
  
"I don't know if I like something like that messing with my mind Usagi."  
  
Ranma said carefully as they started to walk through the mall.  
  
"It doesn't mess with your mind like that Ranma, it makes you a better  
  
person so that you can understand your partners feelings better. When I'm in  
  
danger you will be able to sense it and come to help me, I can do the same  
  
with you when it is needed."  
  
"Can it be removed if I want it gone?"  
  
"No, it was put there by the Kami, we are soul mates Ranma and that sort of  
  
thing usually leads to marriage, but not always. I was just hoping that you  
  
felt the same way I did."  
  
"That explains a few thing about what I have been feeling lately Usagi, but  
  
are you sure it isn't influencing my mind in any way?"  
  
"Ranma were like two pieces of a puzzle that go together, it's just the way  
  
things work out sometimes."  
  
"It's okay Usagi, it's just something I don't like having unless I can understand just what is happening to me. It's like I have no control and there is this thing in the background pulling my strings, it makes me feel weird. Lets go and get that ice cream, I'm in the mood for some all of a sudden." Ranma declared, grabbed his pack and headed off.  
  
**********  
  
End Note - So ends another chapter. I know it has been a while since I posted  
  
the last one, but this story is a little harder to write than the others and  
  
it takes more time to get out. After Minako's little fun last chapter I  
  
decided to back off a little while for this one. The next chapter should get  
  
things back on track and I hope to have it out sooner than this one. Usagi  
  
and Ami are both falling for Ranma and he likes both of them and this time  
  
he has more experience with the girls than he did in Nerima. He is a little  
  
more cautious with them and will be trying to be a little more careful with  
  
them. As for Rei and the others, they will be explained. 


	6. Chapter 5

**********  
  
The Replacement  
  
Chapter 05  
  
By C. Rose  
  
ertle2@msn.com  
  
(c)2001  
  
**********  
  
Ranma spun and tried to sweep Usagi's feet, but she just hopped over his  
  
foot with an impish grin. He continued the assault, moving a little faster than she was used to and used it to push her defenses for several minutes as they spared. They had been sparing in the morning for several days now and Ranma was amazed at Usagi's abilities, she seemed to excel at martial arts so long as he made it fun for her. The regular ways of teaching were out of the question, but if he gave her the right incentive or used the tickle attack technique she picked it faster than he could do at times. He wasn't sure, but he had a feeling that Soul Bond she had told him about was making this kind of quick increase in skill possible.  
  
"That's great Usagi, but you need to keep your defenses up when your in the  
  
air." Ranma said and twisted around into a high kick just as Usagi was  
  
landing, he dropped his leg around her neck to hold her in place. He twisted  
  
around at an almost impossible angle and tickled her ribs, she dropped to  
  
the ground giggling loudly the instant he dropped her.  
  
"What the heck kind of move was that?" Usagi demanded.  
  
"The one that worked." Ranma smirked. "That's enough for today Usagi, your  
  
slowing down and making mistakes. We need to work on your endurance more, maybe a weighted school bag or something."  
  
"I don't think I'm ready for that yet." Usagi gasped out.  
  
"Sure you are, you just need to find a way to ignore the training and you  
  
will learn even faster than you are now. Stand up, lets run through that  
  
kata that I taught you, we need to cool down."  
  
Usagi groaned as she climbed back to her feet and glared at the black cat  
  
giggling at her from the bushes nearby. Then got into position and started,  
  
Usagi still couldn't believe how graceful Ranma was when he did this. She  
  
felt like an awkward, uncoordinated animal compared to his flowing grace and  
  
style. They spent ten minutes cooling down and Usagi was about to drop by  
  
the time they stopped, but for once she didn't seem to mind. She staggered  
  
over to her towel when they were done and smiled at Ranma in a teasing way.  
  
"What?"  
  
"My parents want to meet you today."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Grab your stuff, My mom and dad want to meet the boy who managed to break me of my lazy ways."  
  
"You're kidding."  
  
"Nope, they insisted actually, mom offered to cook you breakfast if you  
  
came by."  
  
Ranma's stomach growled it's opinion on the though of free food, he smiled  
  
sheepishly and Usagi laughed at him. "That's a yes if you didn't notice."  
  
"Oh, I did."  
  
"Could I also use your shower while I'm there?"  
  
"I was going to suggest it, I don't think you've had time to clean up with  
  
more than lake water lately."  
  
Ranma looked down in embarrassment. "Um...well..."  
  
The blonde just giggled, grabbed his hand, and dragged him out of the park  
  
that had been his home for the last few days. She was thankful that he had  
  
managed to get some decent clothes, but where he developed a taste for silk  
  
shirts and kung fu pants she had no idea. On anyone else it would look just  
  
plain weird, but he wore them well, his rock hard muscles didn't hurt  
  
either...um...blush.  
  
Much to Usagi's pained muscles, Ranma had them sprint back to her house.  
  
She was of the opinion he was really hungry and nearly tripped in shock at  
  
the thought, then she burst into a fit giggles. Instead she went down,  
  
twisted and rolled back to her feet without missing a step while still  
  
laughing. She blushed when Ranma smiled at her and nodded in approval, she  
  
almost went down again when a tingle went down her spine a few seconds  
  
later. They soon reached Usagi's two story house and skidded to a halt in  
  
front of the door, surprisingly, Usagi won that race.  
  
"You got me on that one Usagi."  
  
"Running is one of the things I excel at."  
  
"Yeah, well...I'll beat you next time Meatball Head."  
  
"Ohhhhh...you said you were going to stop calling me names."  
  
"But it's so fun to tease you Odango."  
  
"Better watch out, I can play at that game too, cross dresser."  
  
"Hey now!"  
  
Usagi stuck her tongue out. "Nmnmnmnmnm."  
  
"Oh that's really dignified Meat Ball brain." Shingo said. He was leaning  
  
out of the second story window, there was a weird grin on his face.  
  
"Shingo don't you start this now!"  
  
"Yeah right sis." Shingo said and turned from his window. "MOM, DAD, USAGI IS OUT ON THE FRONT STEP KISSING A BOY!!" Echoed though the house a few seconds later.  
  
Usagi and Ranma sighed as the there was this sound of a braking lamp, a  
  
couple of dishes and... "I'll kill him!!"  
  
STOMP...STOMP...STOMP...STOMP...  
  
"That's dad." Usagi sighed. "He's a little over protective of me."  
  
"Now honey, it was probably just a little kiss, you don't need to pull the  
  
shot gun out of the closet!" Yelled a female voice from inside.  
  
"Your mom?" Ranma asked, beginning to sweat a little.  
  
Usagi nodded and sighed, she was beginning to think they went through this  
  
every time she even thought of bringing a boy by to meet them. "Yeah."  
  
The front door to the house burst open and slammed against the side a house  
  
so hard that it left cracks, Mr. Tsukino stepped out onto the front step and  
  
glared evilly at Ranma. "If you ever kiss my daughter again I'll rip your  
  
intestines out and use them to slingshot you across the city! Do you  
  
understand?!" Kenji yelled as he formed a full fledged demon head attack  
  
complete with flashing lights, smoke, and a long waggling tongue.  
  
Ranma yelped and backed up until he was plastered against the wall around  
  
the outside the house, he nodded frantically in acceptance of the threat.  
  
"Yes Sir!" Ranma opened his eyes to look down the barrel of a very large  
  
sawed-off double barreled shotgun, it gleamed in the morning sunlight.  
  
Usagi ran over and grabbed the barrel of the gun pulling it from Ranma's  
  
face just as Ms. Tsukino grabbed her husband by the collar and dragged him  
  
back into the house muttering under her breath. Ranma slumped in relief as  
  
the rather formidable looking weapon was finally removed from his shaking  
  
hands and put away. Usagi's mother eventually stepped to the door and  
  
invited him in so that they could all have breakfast together, his growling  
  
stomach almost seemed to drag him into the house at the mere mention of free  
  
food. Usagi giggled nervously as she followed him inside, just in time to  
  
see Ranma stop, do an about-face and make his way back over to Usagi.  
  
"Um...Usagi, I don't think it would be good idea for me to eat breakfast  
  
with you this morning, I'd better get going." Ranma said quickly and headed  
  
for the front door, but came to a dead stopped when Usagi grabbed his shirt  
  
and dragged him back into the kitchen.  
  
"Daddy! You stop this right now or I'll never talk to you again!" Usagi  
  
yelled at her father.  
  
"Please calm down Kenji, Usagi invited him over for breakfast so that we  
  
could meet him. It's a whole lot better than the last boy she was going out  
  
with since she kept him a secret for over two years." Mrs. Tsukino said as  
  
she started setting out breakfast for the whole family.  
  
Ranma enjoyed breakfast thoroughly, though he kept glancing over at Usagi's father whenever the guy picked up his knife and gave him the evil eye, Usagi's mother was an excellent cook and seemed to have prepared enough food to satisfy even his extensive needs. He and Usagi made a matched pair as they steamrolled their way through the giant breakfast, much to her parents disbelief they had thought their daughter's way of eating was somewhat unique. "We've never met anyone who could match our daughter bite for bite in a food eating contest." Mrs. Tsukino said.  
  
Ranma finished chewing the last of his food, swallowed, and shrugged as if  
  
doing so was an afterthought. "It's an eating technique that my father developed to help me improve my speed and accuracy while being able to put up a decent defense at the same time."  
  
"The speed and accuracy I understand, but I don't see the defense  
  
anywhere."  
  
"Let me demonstrate and you'll understand better." Ranma said as he picked  
  
up a second set of chopsticks and is off hand, got set, and his arms blurred  
  
from sight as pieces of food vanished off every plate on the table in a  
  
matter of seconds. Everyone at the table gaped at his sheer speed. "With  
  
two or more people at the same table using the same technique, they need to  
  
be able to defend against an attack such is that while still being able to  
  
eat off their own plate."  
  
"I see, please don't do that again." Mrs. Tsukino said politely.  
  
"Sure."  
  
"So son where are you currently staying?" Kenji asked.  
  
Ranma shrugged, he had put a little bit of thought into this question when  
  
he realized it would probably come up sooner or later. "Currently my only  
  
home is my tent, I'm on a training trip to clear my head and improve my  
  
skills."  
  
"Training trip?"  
  
"Martial Arts."  
  
"We'll kind of martial arts do you practice?"  
  
"My style is called Anything Goes Martial Arts, it's a conglomeration of  
  
all the best moves of several dozen schools of martial arts. I may be  
  
ranked as a black belt in over a dozen different schools across the world  
  
and can be considered a grandmaster in at least four others, though I have  
  
never taken the final tests to gain that rank."  
  
Kenji paled. "Th-that's quite an accomplishment son, did your father teach  
  
you how to fight in such a way?"  
  
Ranma nodded. "I can't say too many good things about my father, but there  
  
are few teachers in the world who could teach as well as my old man. For  
  
anything else though he's a total moron and an idiot, outside of martial  
  
arts he has totally disrupted and destroyed pretty much every chance I've  
  
ever had of a decent life. That and several other reasons is why I'm on  
  
this training trip, I need to find a way to get away from my fathers bad  
  
influences."  
  
"Don't you think it's a little harsh on your father?" Mrs. Tsukino asked.  
  
"Has Usagi's father here kidnapped or stole a couple hundred cats and put  
  
them any pit, starved them for over a week, and then wrapped your daughter  
  
in with various kinds of cat food and tossed her into the pit?"  
  
"Of course not, that's completely and totally inhuman!"  
  
"My father did that to me when I was six years old and he must have tossed  
  
me into that pit twenty or thirty times. The whole point was to teach me a  
  
martial arts technique called the Neko-ken, it worked to. It has also given  
  
me a total fear of cats that's makes me go insane if I'm ever around a cat  
  
for to long without being able to get away. My father is a great Martial arts teacher, but unfortunately he so good at it that he doesn't take into account his  
  
student's fears and weaknesses."  
  
"Ranma, you haven't mention this to me before!" Usagi yelled.  
  
"The Neko-ken training gave me a number of special abilities, one of them  
  
was the ability to sense when there is a cat around. It's more of a fear  
  
reaction than anything else, but it allows me to know when there is a cat  
  
anywhere within 100 feet of me."  
  
"So what?" Shingo said.  
  
"So, there's a cat in somewhere in this house on the second floor."  
  
"Y-your right there is." Mrs. Tsukino said.  
  
Ranma chuckled nervously. "So long as it stays up there I shouldn't have a  
  
problem with it." Everyone in the room visibly relaxed.  
  
"Usagi why don't you go upstairs and make sure Luna stays in your room."  
  
"Sure mom." Usagi said and headed up stairs.  
  
The instant Usagi was out of the room Kenji stood up and glared down at  
  
Ranma, his aura seemed to be promising him a slow and painful death if he  
  
ever hurt his daughter. He didn't help matters much that the man hissed  
  
that very thing out between his clenched teeth while he grabbed Ranma by his  
  
silk shirt and lifted and clean off the floor. Ranma nodded dumbly and  
  
sighed in visible relief when he was dropped back into his chair. As soon  
  
as the man finished threatening his life he quickly gathered up his  
  
photographic equipment and went off to his job.  
  
"Don't mind him, he is very overprotective of our daughter and has put on a  
  
similar show for every boy that is ever shown even the slightest bit of interest in our daughter."  
  
"I-it's very effective." Ranma gasped out.  
  
"Oh no Daddy did it again!" Usagi moaned from the kitchen entrance.  
  
"I'm afraid so." Mrs. Tsukino said and sipped some tea, totally  
  
unconcerned.  
  
"Mom, would it be okay for Ranma to borrow our bathroom to get cleaned up, he's been staying at that park for the last several days and hasn't had a  
  
chance to get cleaned up lately."  
  
"Of course dear, go ahead and show him where it is and I'll get the dishes  
  
cleaned up." Mrs. Tsukino said as she stood up and winked at her daughter.  
  
Usagi blushed a solid red as she dragged him to his feet and pulled him down  
  
the hall to their furo. Ranma grabbed his large backpack and was thankful  
  
that he had remembered to buy everything that he would need. About twenty  
  
minutes later Ranma stepped out wearing a brand new set of clothing, a white  
  
silk long sleeved shirt with a yen and yang symbol across the back, a pair  
  
of black kung fu pants and white socks.  
  
"My, my, my Usagi, he sure cleans up nice doesn't he?" Mrs. Tsukino  
  
whispered to her daughter as he entered the living room. Usagi started to  
  
blush again and nodded several times as her mother giggled at her.  
  
"Thanks for the use of the furo Mrs. Tsukino."  
  
"No need for thanks, we were happy to let you use it. So, are you going to  
  
school with Usagi?"  
  
"Right now not going to school at all, but eventually I'll probably have to  
  
re-enroll so that I can keep my grades up and graduate. For now I need to  
  
finish this training trip." Ranma said.  
  
"How long are you going to be in the area?"  
  
"Probably a couple of months, but quite possibly longer if things work out  
  
for me."  
  
"If you can be here that long I can help you get set up in Usagi's school  
  
until you decide to leave."  
  
"No thanks..."  
  
"I insist." Mrs. Tsukino said with a glint in her eye.  
  
Ranma sighed in defeat, he never could refuse a determined woman. "Okay,  
  
Okay I'll go."  
  
"Excellent, I'll call the school now and let them know you'll be attending  
  
since the two of you will be heading there in a few minutes anyways."  
  
Usagi, who still hadn't changed out of her workout clothes, screamed in  
  
shock and ran upstairs to her room to change into her uniform. She'd been  
  
so preoccupied with having Ranma in the house that she had completely  
  
forgotten about school, again. So it was about 15 minutes later that Ranma  
  
found himself running to Juuban High School with Usagi, he didn't mind all  
  
that much since that meant that he would have time to spend with his newest  
  
friend and student.  
  
**********  
  
School on the whole, for Ranma, was a waste of time and something he would  
  
rather not be doing all that much of. He and Usagi walked through the front  
  
gate and Ranma could have sworn that he felt the weird meter of the area  
  
snap and fall of the wall, exploding into flames. He actually wondered if  
  
Kuno was here to attack him already, but when he didn't show up Ranma actually got more nervous instead of less. Juuban was on the whole, a little smaller than Furinkan and the students seemed to be more sane than most of the others he had met. On the other hand the hairs on the back of his neck were  
  
standing on end and he could feel about five hundred sets of eyes turn on  
  
him. He looked around to see girl after girl giving him a once over, it made  
  
him shiver.  
  
Usagi on the other hand noticed something else, she was getting jealous and  
  
hateful looks from all the girls. It made her stop and look around in confusion, then she sighed when she spotted Makoto and Minako heading her way. She waved timidly and smiled at them, they smiled at her and glared at Ranma. Usagi couldn't ever remember any of her friends actually being jealous like this over a boy, she looked at them in concern, but they ignored her.  
  
"Hey pervert, stay away from Usagi!" Makoto yelled out.  
  
"Yeah, she already has a boyfriend." Minako said.  
  
"Huh..." Ranma started.  
  
"Usagi already has Mamoru, stay away from her." Makoto said and pulled  
  
Usagi away from him.  
  
"Go back to where ever you came from pervert!" Minako yelled and kicked  
  
Ranma in the shin. He didn't even seem to feel it, though Minako had to  
  
stand on her foot carefully when she hurt her toe.  
  
"What are you talking about?" Ranma managed to get out.  
  
"After what you pulled at the shrine you don't have the right to say much."  
  
Makoto said as she held Usagi behind her.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Get out of here!"  
  
By this time most of the school had taken notice and were beginning to form  
  
in a large circle around the yelling pair and one confused boy. The teachers, who were not quite used to the trouble that followed Ranma around, watched in mild interest and wondered if they were to interfere or not. The tall brunette was known for her fighting and the blonde was, well, blonde. The boy was a new student so they didn't know what to do with him just yet.  
  
"If you don't leave Usagi alone I'll pound you Ranma!" Makoto yelled.  
  
"What did I ever do..." Ranma started.  
  
"Shut up and leave or else!" Minako yelled.  
  
"Guys what are you doing, Ranma hasn't even had time to get to class yet.  
  
Why are you doing this?" Usagi asked.  
  
Makoto growled when Ranma didn't just leave and pushed Usagi into the crowd and launched herself forward, fists flying. Ranma just blinked and dodged on instinct, bobbing and weaving as it was just a normal thing to do, this  
  
caused the crowd to watch in awe since Makoto was a very good fighter. Ranma kept it up for several seconds, this cute and confused look on his face, but eventually he made a decision.  
  
"Cut it out Makoto I don't want to fight you like this."  
  
"Shut up and fight!" Makoto yelled. She was more than impressed with  
  
Ranma's skills, but she didn't care currently, she just needed to make him  
  
pay.  
  
"I did warn you." Ranma said calmly.  
  
Makoto barely heard what he was saying, she was so focused on hitting him,  
  
then she had to blink as Ranma seemed to waver like water and vanished from  
  
sight. Then he was gone and she had to stop and look around in shock, what  
  
the hell had he done. This was the thought of most of the crowd, until  
  
Ranma appeared right in front of Usagi and smiled at her.  
  
"Hiya cutie, what are you doing here?" Ranma drawled and winked.  
  
Usagi gaped and blushed, unable to say anything.  
  
Ranma turned serious. "Are you alright Usagi?"  
  
"Y-yeah, do you know why are they doing this?"  
  
"Got me, Rei was acting the same way the day I left the shrine. I didn't think to much of it at the time, just that she was pissed off. This is different though, I  
  
haven't done anything to either of your friends to warrant this."  
  
"That was when Rei tossed you out of the temple?"  
  
"Yep...gotta go cutie, my dance card is full again." Ranma quipped and  
  
blurred.  
  
Minako came out of nowhere and tackled, or tried to tackle, Ranma. They  
  
went down in a pile of legs, but Ranma had rolled back with a grin and  
  
gently kicked the blonde off him. This was beginning to remind him of the  
  
fights he had all the time at Furinkan, Ukyo, Shampoo, and Akane could  
  
really have some knock down drag out fights when they put there minds to it.  
  
Minako landed with a thump even as he was coming to his feet, unfortunately  
  
Minako had landed ass end up, pink panties high and little Sailor Venus  
  
picture plastered across her bum.  
  
Ranma and most of the boys gaped at it for several seconds before most of  
  
the girls screamed "Perverts!" and proceeded to beat the crap out of all the  
  
staring boys, much to their shock and dismay. This was definitely beginning  
  
to feel like home now, Ranma thought. The frothing girls converged on the  
  
boys with screams of wrath, tossed them to the ground, and proceeded to  
  
pound and kick them for several minutes just for good measure. Usagi, who  
  
was one of the girls not pounding a boy, saw Makoto and Minako cackling as  
  
they jumped in to pile and laid into the boys too.  
  
Usagi noticed that she and Naru were the only ones who haven't jumped in,  
  
though they watched the spectacle with interest. "That's different." Naru  
  
said, blinking a little.  
  
"No kidding, Ranma seems to be subject to these kinds of things." Usagi  
  
said.  
  
"Oh, why do you say that?"  
  
"He actually managed to set off my dad's wrath this morning, got his  
  
shotgun out and everything. Even managed to do that giant head thing of his  
  
and you know how rare that is."  
  
"What about that flaming skull thing?"  
  
"Not yet, but I have a feeling that it's coming and soon."  
  
Naru looked at Usagi curiously. "So is he your new boyfriend?"  
  
"What?!"  
  
"Well?"  
  
"No, we are just friends." Usagi said, but blushed clear to her chest.  
  
"Yeah right, what about that tall, dark, hunk you usually hang around with?"  
  
"Mamoru? He decided he wanted to try living on his own, took off for  
  
America the other day. Left this little note saying were through, again."  
  
"Can I have him?"  
  
Usagi glowered at the smirking Naru.  
  
The crowd of peeved girl's finally stopped pounding the perverts and walked  
  
inside the school in one mass pack just at the final bell rang. Usagi and  
  
Naru stood there in shock, then paled as they were going to be late too and  
  
dashed inside with twin screams of fear, leaving a large pile of groaning  
  
boys in various stages of agony out in the front area of the school. A  
  
closer look showed no sign of Ranma, though by that time no one would have  
  
remembered him anyways.  
  
Usagi and Naru were just pulling out their books when the door to their  
  
class room opened and Mrs. Haruna came in followed by a female Ranma. She  
  
was, surprisingly enough, wearing a girl's school uniform. She had her  
  
bright red hair hanging loose and an irritated look in her eye a she looked  
  
to the back of the class at Makoto and Minako, who gulped and tried to  
  
shrink below their desks.  
  
"Class, this is Ranko Saotome and will be staying with us for three or four  
  
months while she is in Tokyo. She has recently been to China and America on  
  
a training journey for Martial Arts. Please introduce yourself."  
  
"Sure, I'm Ranko Saotome a Master of Anything Goes Martial Arts."  
  
"Thank you Ranko, please take a seat over behind Ami Mizuno."  
  
"Sure." Ranma said as Ami raised her hand and tried to hide a smirk.  
  
Usagi on the other hand looked at Ranma. "What's with the change Ranko?"  
  
"Had no choice, found my self in this outfit and form in the middle of the  
  
fight and didn't have time to switch back." Ranma whispered.  
  
The rest of the morning classes were actually interesting enough to keep  
  
Ranma awake, though she got in trouble for not having any school materials  
  
and had to borrow some. She smiled at the geek behind Naru and battered her  
  
eyes at him until he fainted, then she stole his books, notes, and other  
  
useful items. She had learned her lessons from Nabiki very well, those girl  
  
lessons did come in handy every now and then.  
  
"I can't believe you just did that?!" Usagi hissed.  
  
"He doesn't need them, he was working on his trigonometry homework instead  
  
of English."  
  
"So what, you don't steal other people's stuff like that!"  
  
"USAGI!!" Mrs. Haruna yelled and pointed to the hall.  
  
Usagi blushed, stood up and walked out of class. Ranma on the other hand  
  
was feeling pretty good, until he saw the teacher's look and followed Usagi  
  
out. She wasn't sure what was more useless, Furinkan's water buckets or  
  
Juuban's little signs. Ranma figured it wouldn't have been all that bad, but  
  
Usagi was glaring at her in a very familiar way. "What?"  
  
"This all your fault." Usagi snapped.  
  
"You were the one yelling in class."  
  
"You stole his books."  
  
"I borrowed them, I was going to copy his notes and give them back  
  
tomorrow."  
  
"Yeah right."  
  
Ranma shrugged and was about to say something, when the door to the  
  
classroom banged open and the little geek walked out. He looked around,  
  
spotted Ranma and grinned in a geeky way. He flashed forward and wrapped  
  
himself around Ranma's body like a snake. "My Love!" There were these little  
  
hearts floating around the guy's head that set Usagi to giggling at Ranma.  
  
"Get off you little slime ball!" Ranma yelled as she tried to peel the  
  
thing off, but it just gripped tighter.  
  
"Now you done it Ranko!" Usagi said and started laughing.  
  
"Lay off!"  
  
Naru stalked out of the classroom, spotted her boyfriend and Ranma and  
  
turned red. She stomped over to Ranma, slapped her, and peeled the love  
  
struck Umino off. Then dragged him back into the class room to the sound of  
  
laughter and hooting from the guys and the girls cheering Naru on. Ranma  
  
just stood there in shock while Usagi just giggled and giggled at her as she  
  
rolled on the floor trying to catch her breath.  
  
Ranma just crossed her arms. "Humph!!"  
  
"M-my L-love...." Usagi gasped out and giggled some more.  
  
"Har har Usagi." Ranma grumbled.  
  
Several minutes later they were allowed back in and Ranma spent the rest of  
  
class blushing and trying to hide as all the girls glowered at her. Though  
  
she did find it a little surprising that the geek hadn't taken his books  
  
back, instead there was a note and a fake paper flower telling her to keep  
  
this set since he had several anyway. Of course she tried to give them back,  
  
but the love struck look on his geek face was just pathetic enough to make  
  
her nervous and to make Naru even more jealous and angry. Ranma was happy as punch when the lunch bell finally rang, she jumped up and left the room  
  
before anyone could say anything to her.  
  
She had only intended to copy the geek's notes and return them, no matter  
  
what it may have looked like. She had told Usagi so, and yet she had not  
  
believed her, why? Ranma considered the whole day so far and to her it  
  
seemed almost normal actually, a few girl's jumping to conclusions, her  
  
being blamed for the dumbest stuff and suffering for it. Well she hadn't  
  
suffered all that much yet, she wasn't in any pain anyway and that usually  
  
meant being brained by Ukyo's giant spatula.  
  
Then Ranma blinked, this wasn't Furinkan, it was a normal school and this  
  
meant the actions of the students were more than a little odd. She looked  
  
around the school grounds and noticed that she wasn't the only one being  
  
glared at, everyone was glaring at everyone else like they were paranoid, it  
  
was giving her the strangest feeling. Ranma stood up slowly and looked up at  
  
the window to her homeroom, with a crouch she launched herself three stories  
  
and through the window. Much to the shock of Mrs. Haruna who was yelling at  
  
those students who had stayed in the classroom after the bell rang, that  
  
feeling was getting worse. Ranma tried her best to ignore her and calmly  
  
walked over to Ami and sat down beside her.  
  
"Ami?"  
  
"Yes Ranko?" Ami asked as she looked up.  
  
"This whole school is acting weird, can you scan it for signs of those  
  
things you told me about the other day?"  
  
"Why should I do anything for you after you tried to steal Naru's boyfriend?" Ami asked pleasantly, though Ranma could see something else in her eyes.  
  
"I had no idea the guy would freak like that, I just wanted his notes, not a b-boyfriend."  
  
"I don't believe you." Ami glared at her...him? T-the PERVERT!!  
  
She glared some more.  
  
Ranma shrugged and scooted back a little bit, she threw her hands up in the air as Ami continued to stare at her, this was getting weird and she had  
  
no idea what to do about it. She stood up and turned to go and look around  
  
herself when that feeling hit her again. For a brief second it is worse than  
  
the other times and she feels like she is swimming in the most rancid oil  
  
like substance she has ever felt, it crawls over her skin and sends chill  
  
down her back. A quick glance at Ami shows that she seems to have felt it  
  
too and she sighs as she pulled out her little computer and covertly started  
  
to type. After a few seconds she looks up at Ranma and nods at her to  
  
confirm her suspicions.  
  
"Whatever it is it's on the roof of this building." Ami says quietly.  
  
"I'm heading up there."  
  
"I'll call the others."  
  
"I can handle it Ami." Ranma says arrogantly.  
  
"Uh huh." Ami says and rolls her eyes. "I want to keep an eye on you."  
  
Ranma growls and shrugs. "Whatever."  
  
They get up and start to walk out of the class room, but the teacher stops  
  
them. "Were are the two of you going?"  
  
"Um..." Ranma starts sweating and looking nervous.  
  
"We need to use the restroom sir, we'll be back in a few minutes." Ami says  
  
quickly.  
  
"Hurry up, we start up again in a few minutes."  
  
"Yes sir!" They yell as they dash out of the room. They fail to see the  
  
strange looks that the rest of the class is giving the both of them, and  
  
even if they did they wouldn't have understood it. Though Minako and Usagi  
  
would have, but they were still eating lunch.  
  
"That was weird." Ranma says as they hit the stairs that head for the roof.  
  
"All part of being a Scout, know how to make quick excuses to get out of class. It's the second rule."  
  
"The second?"  
  
"The first is don't give away your identity to anyone if you can help it."  
  
"Right that I can understand. VULCAN KNIGHT SENSHI, MAKE UP!!"  
  
Halfway up the stairs Ranma's arm bracers appear and flare with light and  
  
fill the stair well. When it recedes she stops in mid step and groans in  
  
shock at what she is wearing, Ami looks her over and giggles even as she  
  
turns into Sailor Mercury and contacts the others. Ranma is still wearing  
  
Vulcan's uniform, but is styled for her female body, in other words she is  
  
in a blue jacket like her male form, but the resemblance ends there. The  
  
jacket is form fitting and from the waist down is a dress like section that  
  
hangs from her waist to her knees in front and back and is split up the  
  
sides to show off her legs. She has knee high boots made of a black leather  
  
and her usual mask, her flaming red hair is hanging halfway down her back.  
  
The Blue jewel is still on her chest and pulsing brightly. Finally her  
  
bracers are visible and glinting with a gold like sparkle in the over head lighting of the stairwell. It was enough to make Ranma want to throttle Vulcan if she could get her hands on him, the only thing holding her back was this wonderful feeling running through her body.  
  
"Wow Vulcan, you look great." Mercury said. Why was it suddenly so hot in  
  
here, is the monster affecting the environment? She whipped out her computer  
  
again, but the readings are all negative. Weird.  
  
"Why me?" Ranma muttered to herself. Even when she tried to stay out of  
  
dresses, she seemed to always end up in the most revealing and sexy thing  
  
available. Ranma sighed. She looked around and noticed that her mask was  
  
giving her readings again, there was some kind of energy or mist in the air.  
  
Flowing down the stairs from above and Ranma looked upwards to where the top  
  
of the stairs seemed to be filled with the stuff. Her mask seemed to sense  
  
her need and focused beyond the mist to show a sealed door with the mist  
  
streaming through the edges of the door with malevolent need.  
  
"The computer says our bad guy is up on the roof." Mercury says.  
  
"My mask is telling me the same thing."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
Vulcan turns to look at Mercury. "This mask seems to be like your computer,  
  
it reads the area and shows me some information, where the monster is, the  
  
dark energy in the air and stuff. Even suggested some possible battle plans."  
  
Mercury gaped.  
  
"What, don't tell me you've got mask envy now?" Ranma asked with a playful  
  
grin.  
  
"Humph!"  
  
"Oh yeah, Mask envy."  
  
Mercury is about to respond when Ranma holds up her hand and looks around  
  
quickly, then she growls and jumps up the last few stairs and kicks the door  
  
off it's hinges, sending it flying across the roof to crash into the monster. Who screams in shock at the unexpected attack and crashes to the ground. Vulcan is through the opening before Mercury can blink, but she regroups and follows the girl out onto the roof just in time to see Vulcan land on the door and jump up and down on it a couple of times. What they see is about normal for these kinds of things, she brings computer up and scans the monster. It is vaguely female and seems to be made out of some kind of glass.  
  
"Take that, and some more of the same!" Vulcan yells.  
  
The monster tossed the door off her and Vulcan flips back and lands easily,  
  
she smirks at the thing as she gets her first good look at it. "I see the  
  
Sailors have showed up, oh well, I was expecting you like last week. I'm  
  
Beaker and I will kill you today!" Beaker yelled hollowly.  
  
"You don't look that tough to me." Vulcan grins and launches forward in a  
  
blue blur and slams her palm into the things glass like chest. The glass  
  
shatters around the blow and sends it flying back with a scream only to slam  
  
into the chain link fence that ran around the edge of the roof. "Is that all  
  
you got?" Vulcan yells as she walks forward cracking her knuckles as Mercury  
  
stepped forward.  
  
"Mercury Aqua Rhapsody!!" Mercury yells and fires of her icy blast and  
  
freezes Beaker to the fence as she was struggling to stand back up.  
  
Vulcan launches into the air and kicks the thing in the head, shattering  
  
it's hair, the fence shatters under the force of the blow and it and the monster are suddenly launched off the roof. Ranma does a back flip and lands on the edge of the roof and looks down to see the thing slam into the ground below with a mighty crash. She smirked; this one was turning out to be pretty weak all things considered. She is about to write the thing off when it sits up and shakes  
  
itself, Vulcan can see it's glass like body reforming as she watches. She  
  
barely thinks as she brings her hand forward and yells. "Möko Takabisha!"  
  
and sends a bright blue bolt of power into the thing. Unfortunately Ranma  
  
hadn't had time to train in the use of her new powers, this made for an  
  
interesting effect. What would have been a somewhat strong blast normally,  
  
was far stronger in her Scout form. The blue bolt was almost as bright as  
  
the sun and it fired out with the force of a cannon. Vulcan found herself  
  
being pushed back as the force threw her the length of the roof with just  
  
it's kick back, she landed with a grunt.  
  
"Sailor Vulcan!!" Mercury cried out in shock at the power that had just  
  
been released by her teammate.  
  
Beaker was just turning to look up at her attackers, a sneer on her face  
  
just at the bolt hit.  
  
KA-BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!!  
  
The explosion, about twenty feet from the main walls of the school, shook  
  
the school and rent the area into powder, shattering most of the windows in  
  
the school and causing a concussive blast that knocked most to the nearby  
  
bystanders off their feet, this included Jupiter and Venus who had just  
  
arrived on the scene. Bits of dust and shattered glass rained down on the  
  
school for several seconds, but it was like a rain of dust and caused little  
  
to no damage to anyone. The Scouts were still glad that their Sailor forms  
  
were more sturdy than their normal bodies.  
  
"What the hell was that?!" Vulcan yelled from her back, her hands still  
  
smoking and throbbing in pain.  
  
"Vulcan, you could have killed someone!" Mercury yelled.  
  
"It was just a normal blast, I fire them off all the time!"  
  
"Your transformed state increases your abilities exponentially."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Your about ten to twenty times more powerful in this state, you could  
  
easily hurt someone. Your Ki attacks are increased by the magic of your  
  
transformation, it is how all of us are able to use it as weapons."  
  
Vulcan groaned and tried to think of a way out of this mess, then grined as  
  
her mask scans the entire school and surroundings areas. The damage is  
  
mostly just broken glass and cracked walls, there are only about ten  
  
students hurt and those are minor injuries compared to what could have  
  
happened. The mask beeps and she takes a closer look as it focuses in on the  
  
blast crater. She gasps as the mask tells her that the monster is still  
  
active, as damaged as it was, there seemed to be enough left for it to  
  
regenerate. "That stupid thing is still alive after all that!"  
  
Ami pulls out her computer again and confirms Vulcan's statement. "What  
  
else does your mask say?"  
  
"Basically to keep blowing it up until it is dead." Vulcan snaps as she  
  
staggers to her feet, she felt drained. Her energy reserves were completely  
  
shot, she must have put everything she had into that blast, no wonder it had  
  
been so strong. It was like Ryoga using his Perfect Shishi Höködan.  
  
"Well you let me run some tests on that thing when this over?"  
  
"What? Oh...sure, but later okay?"  
  
Mercury nods and points to the ground where Sailor Moon, Jupiter, and Venus are examining the large crater. Vulcan is pleased to see that Venus and  
  
Jupiter are back on their feet. She pulls out her communicator. "Sailor Moon?"  
  
"What's up Mercury?"  
  
"You need to blast that crater with one of your attacks, it's still  
  
active."  
  
"It's still alive, after being hit with something like that?!"  
  
"Yes, now blast the center of the crater Sailor Moon."  
  
"Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss!!" Moon yells as few seconds later and  
  
fires off her magic. It clears out the smoke and dust and leaves a broken  
  
case of glass bottles at the bottom of the crater, Venus and Jupiter blast  
  
the remains just to be sure.  
  
"I still say that giant pink heart is just stupid." Vulcan mutters.  
  
Mercury hits her up side the head. "So what, it works doesn't it?"  
  
"It's a nine foot high giant pink heart Mercury."  
  
"That it is."  
  
Ranma watches silently as the dark mist seems to just rise into the sky and  
  
vanish as if it had never existed before. She sighs in relief as she notices  
  
that Mercury is no longer being affected by it either, down below the stuff  
  
seems to take its nearly invisible claws out of all the students and  
  
disappear. Ranma hopped it would make things better, but she knew her luck  
  
and knew it would only delay the next weird thing that happened. Of course  
  
if she had noticed this stuff a little sooner she would still be at the  
  
temple instead of on the street. That didn't matter though, she had lived on  
  
the road for over ten years, this was a lot easier to do than that. Now all  
  
she had to do was learn to control her new strength, find a new place to  
  
live, and figure out how she had shifted genders during the fight earlier.  
  
She hadn't been hit with cold water and her clothing had shifted with the  
  
change. That had never happened before and to figure it out she was going to  
  
have to practice. She grinned, that was her favorite pastime anyway, though  
  
now that she was going to school again she would have to be on high alert.  
  
Nabiki would be able to find her now, easily. Hopefully she would have a  
  
week or two before the crazies showed up to make her life a living hell  
  
again. That would give her some time to make some plans, some thing she had  
  
been putting off. Things were going to be very interesting in the upcoming  
  
months, she could feel it.  
  
Vulcan grinned evilly.  
  
Mercury backed up a couple of steps as Vulcan started to glow then cackle  
  
insanely.  
  
**********  
  
Notes - Okay, I had to rewrite compete sections of this chapter because I  
  
absolutely hated what I had originally posted. The more I looked at it the  
  
less I liked it, it wasn't fun enough or up to my usual standards. Hopefully  
  
this version reads a little better and wasn't as gloomy as the other one. 


	7. Kung fu Mall fighting

Notes -   
  
**********  
  
The Replacement  
  
Chapter 06  
  
By C. Rose  
  
ertle2@msn.com  
  
(c)2002  
  
**********  
  
Birds chirped and sang as the early morning sun rose above the horizon and illuminated the forest that stretched on for as far as the eye could see. There was dew on the grass and mountains far in the distance that rose majestically into the sky. Inside this forest was something that hadn't been seen in generations and even then it had been nearly forgotten by all but the most dedicated researcher. Over the years the forest had reclaimed the land and decimated all that had once been here. Still, here and there, highlighted by the morning shadows or rare animal was a tower, an old, old tower made from pure crystal. How such a thing had survived was unknown, but it was the only thing left standing of the entire city that had once dominated this entire area.   
  
Now it was nothing but rubble, save for this tower that was covered in vines and looked to be almost totally impregnable even after all this time. It stood nearly six stories high and was still dwarfed by the giant trees all around it. Time had eroded its subtle beauty and crystalline beauty, but its walls still stood and its main gate was still holding fast. It stood nearly twenty feet high and looked like someone had sealed it shut, for all around the base of the tower were several bands of steel that had been set right into the crystal itself. They did not rust or fail as time went on and suggested that incredible craftsman ship may have gone into its construction.   
  
As the day passed animals played and hunted in front of the tower and went on with their lives. Clouds rolled in and by the time the afternoon had arrived it was raining heavily and filling the small valleys around the tower with water and providing for life. Then night fell and the storm got worse, turning from a summer shower into a storm of titanic proportions. Lightning flashed across the sky and thunder rolled across the valley, it was so loud that it shook the tower. Then the lightning started to fall out of the sky, hitting trees and blowing them to pieces, starting fires and destroying everything in its path.   
  
Then came the hail and more lightning that seemed to focus upon the tower itself, even then it held against the onslaught of destruction as everything around it was obliterated. The steel bands glowed and repulsed the lightning and the hail bounced harmlessly off the walls, but then something happened that hadn't been included in its construction. The fire that was reducing the thick trees to charcoal was caught in the wind and collapsed several of them into the tower where the wind managed to make the vines and muck covering the tower to catch fire. Lightning continued to strike the tower like a giant hammer and added to the fire as it swarmed around the tower.  
  
After almost an hour of this kind of abuse the storm actually got worse, developing into tornado like winds to form several funnel clouds that made their way through the forest to cause even more chaos, they all headed right for the tower. By this time the flames from the fallen trees had climbed all the way up the tower and engulfed it completely. With a loud groan another tree slammed against the tower and something shattered and some of the crystal above the gate fell to the ground. A blue glow formed around the hole and expanded to cover the entire structure, the fire was put out almost immediately and the burning wood vaporized in a matter of seconds.   
  
The tornado's were unaffected though and kept crashing against the field of power that had sprang up around the tower and as the seconds passed it glowed brighter and brighter until a low humming could be heard. It lit up the night in stark contrast to the red of the fire and quickly dwarfed it in a small area. A ball of light formed at the very tip of the tower fired into the sky to bleed off energy and protect the tower, but this only fuelled the already destructive storm and increased its wrath by pulling a giant lightning bolt out of the clouds. It struck the tower with the wrath of a god and blew through the shield and obliterated the top two floors like they were made out of paper. The winds from the tornado's moved in and finished laying waste to the tower for the rest of the night, by the time they were done only the first two floors were standing and tons of debris were scattered all across the forest.   
  
Books and scrolls rained down and were consumed in the fire, the stones smashed and even more trees died fiery deaths. All across the planet items of power hidden in caves, in vaults, and rare collections burst forth with power to warn of the destruction of the tower. No one knew what it meant, to much time had passed and thousands of years of knowledge had been lost over time. No one alive had a clue what the glowing items meant, only that it gave them a very bad feeling that things were about to change, change for the worse.  
  
**********  
  
He had been here for at least a week now, pushing his training to new heights. That fight at the school had proven to Ranma that he needed to get better control of his power. That crater in front of the school was a very good reminder of just how much control he had over his new powers, not as much as he would have liked to have. As Ranma Saotome he was one of the best martial artists in the world, but as Vulcan those powers were nearly ten times as strong. Everything about her was amplified in some way, speed, strength, and power were all off the scale and she was cursing himself for being lax in his training. He'd had these powers for close to two weeks now and hadn't spent any time practicing them. True he had been kind of distracted, but that was no excuse to get sloppy and hurt someone by accident and he felt guilty about those students that had been hurt in his ill timed blast. Ami and Usagi had taken him to the side after that last battle and chewed him out for a couple of hours for being so reckless and stupid. This coming from Usagi was a surprise, but all of the Scouts had been effected by that Youma's rather odd effect one a persons emotions, so they had all been wound up pretty tightly.  
  
School had been cancelled because of the fight and Ranma had been training constantly for the last few days now. From really early in the morning until late at night he was constantly in motion and almost begging for a decent sparing partner. From morning until noon he would work out in his normal form, then he would transform and use his new magic power to change his uniform into a copy of his normal clothing and practice for the rest of the day or until he dropped. Whichever came first. He almost missed Ryoga and wondered where the lost moron was, almost. So he was practicing his Ki control and perfecting it so that he could control it at almost any level. He had taken a renewed interest in certain types of Anime in the last week as well, he had found that the increase in his Ki abilities gave him the ability to perform things that were almost unthinkable a few days before, so he was trying to perfect some of the odd Ki techniques that the characters had used in the shows or come as close as he could to copying them. To his surprise a good number of the techniques were actually possible, he just had to find the right way to do them. The name was weird though so he figured he would just change those so no one complained if they saw them.  
  
A small discussion with Ami and a quick search of her little computer had netted him several ways to get what he wanted. One of the more interesting one he had latched on to was a way to manipulate his Ki so that he could form an area around himself that was heavier than normal, combine it with some weights and his endurance training had hit some all new highs. Even Ryoga would have had problems doing what he was trying. Simple motions like walking and breathing were made so hard that he had to concentrate on them almost constantly just to keep control. The first couple of days had been incredibly hard, but after that he had adjusted to the added weight and been able to move onto some basic kata.  
  
The aerial stuff was out of the question, his increased weight was making him nearly five or six times heavier than normal gravity and pushing him mentally and straining his body to the absolute limit. He was elated though because he was adjusting quickly and figured that within a few days at this level he would be ready to push himself to higher and higher heights of control. It was a lesson he had learned from the old man that stuck with him through the years, the harder the training the better the results when one accomplished the goal. His muscles bulged as he threw a couple hundred punches at this imaginary opponent, did a spin kick, and ended with a simple back flip to land in a perfect relaxed stance. The jump may have been a bit much but it wasn't as bad as he had thought it would be as his knees protested all the weight they had held up when he landed, maybe he should try some aerial stuff a little sooner than he thought.  
  
Just outside of Tokyo were a number of shrines and training grounds that could be put a number of uses, that suited his needs perfectly and he had eagerly set out to put in some training time. He was kind of glad that a break from school had happened when it did and taken it as a the perfect opportunity to train before he had to go back. These were all places that he had visited earlier in the training trip and they allowed him to train as much as he wanted so long as his father wasn't around to cause more problems, like stealing the super secret scroll from a nearby shrine or ripping off a food cart or ten in his spare time. Ranma had learned a few things about the old man on this trip as well, his thieving ways were more wide spread than he had thought.   
  
There was a small pole set up at the waters edge a little ways away, so he hopped over there and jumped up to a four foot pole and knelt down to adjust his balance. This was an area of this training ground that his father had avoided the last time he was here, but a quick look around showed that there were nearly two dozen poles of varying heights moving up stream and across the slow moving water. He moved slowly, manipulating his Ki as best he could to make sure he landed correctly and didn't snap any of his bones as he hopped from pole to pole carefully testing them to see if they could hold his new weight. When they didn't snap he grinned and started to practice his mid air stuff for the first time in over a week.   
  
His movements were slow and poorly executed, but the skill was still there, he was just too heavy for his muscles to achieve the grace and power that they had once possessed. He could do some of the simpler jumps though and that meant he could get back up to where he had been in a short time. The next two hours were spent hopping and flipping from pole to pole, every now and then pulling out something a little more complicated and trying to complete it before he had to land.   
  
It surprised him when he was only able to accomplish one mid air technique out of every five tries and even then he had to rush his landings. His added weight was causing him tons of problems, more than he had figured it would, but he was trying to do this a few days to early so he wouldn't let that get him down. With a couple of quick hops he landed on the ground and groaned as his muscles complained and his legs nearly buckled under the strain. Proof positive in his mind that he was trying the aerial stuff far too soon. Just like he had thought. Then he froze as he saw something out of the corner of his eye and looked around.  
  
There was something out there at the edge of his senses, he wasn't sure what it was, but it was watching him closely. He straightened up and glanced around carefully, whatever the thing was, it was hiding in the trees off to the side and across the river. Then his eyes narrowed just a tiny bit as he felt it moving, he caught a glimpse of movement in the shadows of the trees, and he glared at the spot where he felt it would appear. All was quite for a few seconds, then the bushes parted and a tall girl stepped out into the open. She had lavender hair that trailed all the way down her back and a face that was somewhat familiar to him.  
  
"I know you from somewhere." She called out and narrowed her eyes at him as if trying to remember something at the tip of her tongue.  
  
Ranma tilted his head and nodded. "I know you too, but I don't remember your name."  
  
"Call me...Ryoko."  
  
That didn't help Ranma much, his memory for names and faces was pretty bad at times. "I'm Ranma Saotome."  
  
If anything the girl's glare got worse. "The only Ranma Saotome I know is a red headed girl that stopped by the Masaki shrine a while back."  
  
That did it, Ranma suddenly remembered his visit to the shrine because of Akane and just who he was facing. She would have had to fight with this girl after he accidentally ended up in the girls bath/pool inside the house, and if that cat hadn't appeared chased him off the property. Ryoko and that other one had chased him around for awhile trying to kill him with those strange Ki blasts of theirs. Luckily he had been able to get some cold water and turn female before they caught him, but that had led to a fight where he had been forced to use the Hiryü Shöten Ha. That had been just before she met Usagi and the Scouts, what did she want now?  
  
"Now I remember you, you're that pervert that invaded me and Ayeka's bath, aren't you?" Ryoko snarled and started to glow.  
  
Ranma started to sweat and scratched the back of his head. "Um...no?"  
  
"You won't get away this time Pervert!" Ryoko said and held out her hand, a bar of energy flared to life. "You will pay for what you did, it took us weeks to clean up the destruction you caused!"  
  
"You were the ones throwing around those explosive blasts lady!"   
  
"Time to DIE Pervert!!"  
  
"I don't need this crap right now!" Ranma yelled and dodged to the side just a the ground behind him blew up.  
  
"Stand still and take your punishment like a man should!" Ryoko yelled as she flew across the river and charged up another blast.  
  
Ranma didn't want to back down, but he was at the end of his energy and had been practicing for most of the morning and he needed a break before he transformed and started the afternoon fun. If he let the weight technique go now he would lose a lot of its benefit, he needed it active for at least a week before he could relax its effect, though transformation made the technique even stronger. Currently it was making him use over ninety percent of his Ki to keep it active, it was great practice and once he adjusted to it completely the Ki drain would become less and less until he could move around with it active constantly.   
  
"NO WAY, I DON'T HAVE TIME TO DEAL WITH CRAZY CHICKS TODAY!!" Ranma yelled out as he ran into the woods with the trees exploding all around him. He ducked and weaved through the explosions of wooden shrapnel as they washed over him and seriously considered releasing the technique, but decided that it could wait until he absolutely had no other choice. Anyway, he had a few trick up his sleeve that this girl probably hadn't encountered before. He just had to stay away from the river, it wouldn't do to reveal his curse to her just yet, and he would save that for later.  
  
"DIE PERVERT!!" Ryoko screamed from above the trees and fired blast after blast down upon the fleeing Ranma.  
  
"Gotta catch me first you old bat!!"   
  
Ryoko screamed and dropped down into the smoke and dust that was beginning to obstruct her sight. The boy had been running in a circle through the smoke to keep her from hitting him, it also showed that he was more than a typical pervert. She was hesitant to go all out with the guy, he was cute, and she just wanted to punish him for dropping in on her in the bath and peeking at her. That privilege was only for her Tenchi and no one else had the right to ogle her, she would make him pay for thinking otherwise.  
  
The fire and smoke all around her was making it hard to see so she teleported to a different location a few hundred feet away and looked around. The pervert wasn't anywhere to be seen and she slammed her fist into a tree and knocked it over. "Come out here and take your punishment!"  
  
"You don't think I'm that stupid do you?" Came out of the woods from all around her, she couldn't place where the voice was coming from.  
  
"I will make you pay!"  
  
"Hah! I have all the time in the world, we can play some other time cute stuff!" Ranma yelled.  
  
Ryoko blinked and growled a little, it wasn't often that a human could cause her this kind of trouble. "I will find you yet!"  
  
"Then challenge me toots, I don't take kindly to threats and ambushes like this."  
  
"@#&##&!!"  
  
"Hey, even my fiancée's wouldn't say that to my face. Want some soap?"  
  
"#$%@ #%$@ &%$@$#!!"  
  
"HAHAHAHAHAH I like you, so do you want to challenge me or not?"  
  
"Fine, I challenge you, just get out her where I can rip your head off!!" Ryoko yelled, her eyes were glowing with power.  
  
"You're from that Masaki Shrine right?"  
  
"Yes!"  
  
"Then I'll meet you there in front of the house in two weeks. I have things I need to do before then so be patient and we can fight then."  
  
"Tell my your name!"  
  
"I already told you, my name is Ranma Saotome."  
  
"That was that girl's name!"  
  
"Go and find out about Jusenkyo and you'll understand. See you in two weeks cute stuff!!" Ranma yelled and slipped deeper into the forest not that she wasn't actively looking for him.   
  
"$@#$&!!!!" Ryoko snarled and teleported out of the area.  
  
"I'll have to thank the teacher for making me read that stupid American book, it was full of great insults. Who would have thought the Americans could do something so well?" Ranma mused to himself as he relaxed. He found a trail and jogged back to the housing area for the students, he still had a weeks worth of training to take care of before he headed back into town. He considered using the communicator to call Usagi and tell her about the fight, but shrugged it off. She had better things to do than worry about him anyway.  
  
**********  
  
Washu wasn't laughing for a change as she read over her latest results on the locals, there were several very bad readings there that could only mean trouble. She wondered if she should warn anyone since it didn't really have much of anything to do with the shrine. After a few minutes she decided to monitor the situation and tell the others only if they needed know. There wasn't anything they could do anyway and the locals were moving in to take care of it even as she looked it over.   
  
She had found that humans were primitive, stupid, and very adaptable when it came to this kind of stuff. They had no clue what they were dealing with and yet they found ways to stop the threats and put then down in their own primitive ways. It was a sight to behold at times the silly things that actually worked for one reason or another. She called up a secondary screen and tapped into a satellite she had in orbit and scanned the west side of Nerima, Japan where a warp in reality had opened up and spilled out several of what could only be called shadows. There were several races across the universe that had a shadow warping ability like this and they all tended to use it for the same things, but she happened to recognize these from an old memory. They were all supposed to be extinct, completely and totally wiped out over a five thousand years ago.  
  
They were relatively useless on their own, but once they found a suitable host they could become very dangerous as they warped the hosts mind. Those girls from the Silver Millennium that had been running around lately would have the situation cleaned by the time they arrived anyway. So Washu snapped her fingers and sat back as a comfortable couch appeared behind her, picked up a nearby tub of buttered popcorn, and sat back to watch the show. A lot of the cities on Jurai had these buildings built that created a kind of shield that kept this stuff from happening, they had been in place for centuries and she had never had much to do with them. This was the first time that she had ever found a world that didn't have them before, though the priests that were all over Japan had come close to getting them up and running at one time, but lack of cooperation and funds had squelched that idea about two hundred years back. Political problems had intervened and made sure the things were not built, they were considered a waste of money and all that. Washu laughed as the computers tracked a shadow as it headed for a dojo in the middle of Nerima, it went up one wall and through a window and vanished.  
  
It was so funny to see primitive cultures try and understand a whole new form of science that they just couldn't grasp to save their own lives. They did make for good live action viewing pleasure though, so she sat back and enjoyed herself. It had been a long time since she watched any of the Sailor Scouts in action anyways, the loss of the Silver Millennium had been a great loss that always saddened her. It was good to get a chance to see them in action again, so with a cackle she grabbed a remote and fast forwarded to the action. Temporal devices were a pain to calibrate correctly, but once that was done they were a great thing to have in any mad scientist's collection.   
  
**********  
  
Ranma was at the mall after finishing his last week of training and was getting adjusted to not weighing so much anymore. His Ki reserves had nearly tripled as he adjusted to the weight that technique had added to him, but a good portion of it was still uncontrolled. It would take him some time to get it under control and added into his skills, a week just wasn't enough time to much of anything except perfect some new moves and build his body's endurance. His training had pretty much ripped his clothing to shreds and left him with only a couple other sets to use. Since he had the money he'd decided to swing through the mall to pick up some new clothes. Then just as he was passing by a couple of kids just wandering through the mall, the worst thing in world happened, he was shot in the head with a rather large water gun. This didn't make her very happy and the would be ambusher was soon sent head first in the fountain, his water gun floating in pieces around him. Ranma liked kids, but there were times when she came across one or two of them that needed a little beating to set them straight.   
  
She was glad that no one seemed to have noticed her change, or the beating, but knowing her luck things were about to get interesting. It was the nature of the curse that she couldn't go two days without something weird happening to her. Ever since coming to Juuban she had been noticing things that had never even registered to her in Nerima. She figured it had something to do with her new abilities, the magic must have been affecting her in ways she didn't understand. That soul bond thing with Usagi still baffled her on certain levels, but it was something she could deal with since it didn't hurt her in any way as far as she could tell. Still she would have liked to have been asked first before such a thing was forced on her.  
  
Ever since she had defeated those punks at the street fight, they had been hounding her with challenges and such. They actually didn't care about the money, instead they kept setting up fights for her to fight in. Once or twice a week she had to show up at these warehouses and fight this fighter or that one, all she had to do was place a bet on herself and make herself and the punks a tidy sum of cash. The last several fights had been pretty interesting too, a couple of girls from the Tendo half of his school had given her a run for her money, this monkey like creature with green hair and a fascination with lightning, and a guy who could crush stone with his bare hands. Another couple of weeks and she would be able to get herself set up in an apartment.  
  
Only Usagi knew how she was making money and she kept telling her to stop doing it before she got in trouble. Ranma had been around enough to know what the girl was telling her, but she had no family to fall back on and needed the money to get food. Stealing it would have been easy enough, but would have made the situation even worse than it was. Like that last fight, those two girl's had nearly gotten her with that hot and cold ribbon attack. Luckily she had spotted a major weakness in the attack and used to beat them soundly. Ranma wasn't sure who those girl's were, but they had been a lot better than Akane ever had been. She wondered when Akane's father had taught them how to fight, they had years of experience behind them and had been quite surprised when they were defeated like that.   
  
She'd even had to give them directions on how to get to the Tendo Dojo, but finding the place in that maze of streets was a pain, hopeful they had made it there to see their teacher. Ranma shrugged and made her way out of the Chinese clothing store, she pointedly ignored the dress section that would have had Shampoo drooling for several minutes. Her fiancée's were a thing of the past now, hopefully she wouldn't have to deal with them anytime soon. Eventually Shampoo and Cologne would follow her to Juuban and start up the chase again, but Ranma hoped they would just give up and go home. Being chased for three months by a raving lunatic trying to behead you just because you were better at martial arts was just plain stupid, those actions had ruined any chance the girl might have had of them being married. Talk about a sore loser.  
  
As she was about to step out of the door, two very large women stepped from the sides to block her path. They crossed their arms over their far to large chests and rather mashed faces. They towered above Ranma's female form by close to a foot or more and they both bulged with muscles. The weird part was that they were wearing Furnikan High uniforms and appeared to be seniors of some type, but she didn't recognize them from the few months she had been there. They also had to be the ugliest girl's Ranma had ever seen in her short life and was about to comment on them holding the 'Ugly' stick for to long when she noticed the third girl standing just in front of them.  
  
"Hi Nabiki." Ranma said casually.  
  
"I found you finally."  
  
"So you did, what do you want now?"  
  
"You're coming with me Saotome."  
  
"Any particular reason why I should? To cause me more pain perhaps, to sell me like my father does, oh I know, you want me to fight with Akane some more. Right?!" Ranma snapped.  
  
"You have responsibilities Saotome."  
  
"I will not be forced to do something against my will Nabiki."  
  
"You hurt my sister when you didn't come back Saotome and I will make you pay for that." Nabiki growled.  
  
"Well your sister hurt me on a daily basis, but you don't care about that do you? What I want has never mattered to anyone, not you, pops, my fiancées, even my mom could care less what I think. I've had enough of that kind of crap, I won't be forced to come back Nabiki and I highly doubt your sister cares whether I live or die. After all the last words she said to me were that she wanted 'THE PERVERT TO SHUT UP AND DIE!' then she hit me so hard that I was knocked clear out of the city. I landed in a lake just outside of Tokyo."  
  
"I already tracked you to the Masaki Shrine Ranma, you managed to level most of the house and destroyed a good portion of the wooded area around the lake. They mentioned something about a giant tornado, if that wasn't enough, they were looking for a pigtailed pervert too. It seems he jumped into the girl's bath and tried to ogle them while he was under water. Maybe my sister was more correct about you than she let on, hmmm?"  
  
"Believe what you want Nabiki, you jump to conclusions just like everyone else in Nerima."  
  
"Oh please Saotome, I don't jump to conclusions, I make money off of you to support my family, your fiancée's and enemies are destroying the dojo looking for you. Daddy is a nervous wreck, Akane can't stop bursting into tears every time she sees something that reminds her of you, the panda is in the zoo again just to get him out of our hair and pay off some bills. You will come back and fix things, or else."  
  
"Or else what Nabiki? You don't usually make threats like this unless you have something to back them up."  
  
"Or else I sell your location to everyone for a hefty sum."  
  
"Oh please, you would do that anyways and I figure you already have. Why sell it once when you can sell it again and again, right?"  
  
"Moi?" Nabiki blinked innocently.  
  
"Please, I've had a lot of time to think about this and the games you like to play. I just had to put it into a martial arts type of theme and it came easily. By the way, what's with the goon squad here?" Ranma asked as she gestured two the 'girls' Nabiki had brought with her.  
  
"Matilda and Bertha, Furnikan High's most powerful wrestlers and seventh level dan in five different styles of martial arts. Combined they are the Furnikan Crushers, the have won the school bone crusher award for five years straight."  
  
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "Five years?"  
  
"No one ever said they were smart, just good fighters."  
  
Ranma looked up at the two girl's and frowned. "I take it you two owe Nabiki here something, right?"  
  
"Ja."  
  
"Hai."  
  
Ranma shuddered, they sounded like they were gargling rocks or something. Just breathing seemed to be stretching the seems of their uniforms too, there were things in there that she really didn't want to see either. She turned to look back at Nabiki and cocked her head to the side with a smirk. "You don't actually expect me to just back down and do what you say do you, Nabiki?"  
  
"My family comes first and you're the cause of it's problems right now, I can't keep up on the repair bills when you're not there. Now come along."  
  
"No."  
  
"Excuse me, be a man and live up to your responsibilities."  
  
Ranma smirked and absently scratched one of her breasts. "...be a man, with a figure like this one?"  
  
"Don't play with me Ranma, I know all about you and your new friends. I can make them pay for what you're unwilling to fix."  
  
Play time was over it seemed, Nabiki was starting to play a little rougher than normal. Well Ranma didn't mind all that much, dealing with Nabiki was like dealing with the Yakuza, she was sneaky, mean, and dangerous to be around. Ranma had always wondered whether or not the girl even had a heart in her chest anymore, she would do almost anything to get what she wanted. Things between them had been getting worse and worse for months now, it was why she did everything in her power to ruin whatever Ranma wanted to do. This was no exception, though the threat was a new twist that she hadn't counted on. Well, Ranma figured, it was time to do the unexpected. She smirked as she put her packages into her new subspace pocket, every Scout's best friend.  
  
"Just what are you going to do Saotome, you can't get away. I've made plans and you will not ruin them for me or my family."  
  
"You seem to have forgotten something Nabiki."  
  
"And what is that?" Ranma could hear the contempt in her voice.  
  
"I would have been your brother-in-law if someone hadn't been trying their best to make sure I didn't marry their sister."  
  
"I will not have you in my family." Nabiki snapped.  
  
"But you want me to come back, for what, to be your slave? You can't have it both ways."  
  
"Oh, but I can."  
  
"Just how do you plan on doing that?"  
  
"Fine then." Nabiki stepped back and smiled her Ice Queen smile. "Get her girls."  
  
Matilda and Bertha flexed and ripped their way out of their uniforms, they had on body builder bikinis underneath. It was one of the most repulsive sights Ranma could ever remember seeing, well except for that time when Cologne showed off her bathing suit at the beach. Ranma hopped back several feet into the store and got into position, these two were about to get the shock of their lives. Still, Ranma was kind of curious what Nabiki had paid them or blackmailed them with to make them do this. It was totally dishonourable and a lost cause for them to fight like this, Ranma figured Nabiki had a plan in mind.   
  
Then the most amazing thing happened as Matilda and Bertha stepped forward, they took on a black battle aura that was filled with more power than she had expected. What in the hell was this, she wondered? Matilda crouched down and smirked, if they would have been outside birds would have passed out from the shocking sight. Even Ranma had to step back as the ugly sight hit her, where in the world had Nabiki found these two? Well Nerima did have the most martial artists in all the world outside of China, so they must be one of those unorthodox schools that seemed to be all over Nerima.   
  
Ranma blinked as she noticed one of the sales girl come out of the back room, took one look the two wrestler girls, and screamed until she fainted. For some reason Ranma felt like throwing up just from what these two looked like, but fainting was a little much. Though she was detecting...aha...they were putting out a kind of fear aura that was affecting those around them. Ranma could tell that it was there and adjusted her aura to counter act it, she was a bit surprised to see that Nabiki wasn't affected either, now that was strange indeed. It was pretty slick too, very dependent on their looks and size though. Kind of like how a bully only picks on those he knows will not fight back, a pretty cool trick that had probably allowed the two girl's to win a good number of matches and they had the power to back up their attacks. This was going to be fun.  
  
"You are going down little girl, you can not stand up to our might!"  
  
"Oh please, it's a cute Ki trick, but it is so easy to figure out how it works." Ranma taunted. To bad they were girls though, he would have to test them to see just how good there really were. The only girl he knew he could go all out on was Shampoo and she had gotten lax in her training lately.  
  
The two large women growled and jumped forward, working as a perfect team as one punched and the other kicked. Ranma just jumped up above the attacks, landed on Bertha's head and used it to flip behind them. Then Ranma hit the floor and took off running at full speed, she blew right by Nabiki and made her way out onto the mall's second level walkway. She turned to see all three girls running after her, so Ranma called them "ugly enough to kill a dog at twenty meters" and slapped her ass as she jumped off the second level to the floor below. She landed and took off running, behind her Matilda and Bertha landed hard as the cracked the floor.   
  
"AGHHHHHH!! My eyes, my eyes!!" Screamed some nameless woman.  
  
"AGHHHHHH!! Oh my god! AGHHHHH!!" Yelled a store clerk that happened to be looking the wrong direction when the girls landed.  
  
A quick look showed that Nabiki hadn't joined the gruesome twosome in the jump, so she was probably looking for the stairs or following them from above. Ranma wasn't sure which one it was though, she would have to deal with the middle Tendo girl later. There was something about her that didn't feel right and she needed to make sure the Bertha and Matilda were taken care of. Those two were tossing random innocents around like a pair of linebackers from an American football team, Ranma could feel that something wasn't right with them as well. She hit a packed section of the mall and Ranma jumped onto the wall and ran along it for a ways before jumping back down and continuing on. The sounds screaming and a mass exodus for the bathroom soon followed when the gruesome twosome hit that area. Ranma was a bit surprised that they were still using their auras though, it must have been draining them of all their energy.   
  
Then to Ranma's surprise she had so slide to a stop as Bertha seemed to just appear right in front of her. Sliding to a stop, she did a drop and roll to keep from being body slammed and elbow smashed by the wrestler. It was enough of a distraction to let Matilda catch up and get her in a head lock, but a quick Ki charged elbow to the girl's stomach was enough to make her back off in pain. She still felt bad about hitting them, but it looked like the both of them had been hit harder than that many times before, one couldn't get this ugly without working for it. Ranma had to give them some credit, they seemed to know what they were doing. They had placed themselves on both sides of her and were slowly circling around to keep her from escaping, but it seemed Nabiki hadn't told them to much about her Ki abilities.  
  
"I have no interest in fighting either one of you."  
  
"To bad shrimp, it just means you will go down faster." Said Bertha.  
  
"I will break you like a twig." Matilda commented.  
  
Ranma just shook her head and did a standing back flip and was soon well above the girl's heads. She rebounded off the wall, a store front, and was soon running back in the direction she had just come from. The crowd was almost completely gone by this time and she spotted a fountain up ahead, she used it as a stepping stone and flipped her way up to the second level with a smirk. All that training with the weight technique had paid off, she hadn't had to use any Ki for the jump. She landed to the applause of some of the shoppers and looked back to see Matilda and Bertha gaping at her from below, she waved back and took off. They didn't seem to know how to go up like they did down, which was a good thing in Ranma's opinion. To bad there was a stair case nearby, Matilda and Bertha made a bee line for it and bounded up three steps at a time.   
  
"Sheesh!!" Ranma slid to a stop as the floor in front of her exploded and cut off the escape.  
  
"You can't get away from me Ranma, your life is mine to do with as I please!"   
  
Ranma turned and spotted Nabiki as she calmly walked up from out of nowhere, but something was off about the girl now. She wasn't sure what it was, but Ranma could feel it in her bones. Nabiki wasn't usually this heartless, even for her, ruthless and picky yes, not like this though. She had never caused this much of a hassle to anyone she need something from, she worked from behind the scenes. The aura of dark energy floating around the girl was a dead give away too, don't let it be said Ranma wasn't observant.  
  
"What the hell happened to the Nabiki I knew?"  
  
"I was offered freedom."  
  
"Some freedom Nabiki."  
  
"Ah, but the power that came with it is more than enough to defeat you and make you mine." Nabiki said as she lifted her hand and fired off a bolt of dark energy, Ranma barely dodged as she was taken completely by surprise, that had been the last thing she expected from someone like Nabiki, the bolt missing her head by mere inches and blew a section of the wall behind her to pieces.   
  
"Can we play too boss?" Asked Matilda and Bertha as they finally made it back to the second level.  
  
"Come on girls, let's get her."  
  
"Sure thing boss."  
  
Matilda and Bertha shot forward and Ranma realized she had no choice, all three girls were glowing with that dark energy now. Decision made, she crouched down and smirked, they had no idea what they were dealing with now. Matilda's fist shot forward, but Ranma just stabbed at it with her finger and twisted. Like Happosai and his pipe trick, Matilda's momentum was transferred and sent her flying through the roof of the mall with a scream of shock. At the same time Ranma shot her foot out into Bertha's sternum with a little extra Ki enhanced force, she went down like a stone. A precise kick to her neck was enough to render the unconscious for a few hours.  
  
"I thought you didn't hit girl's Ranma?" Nabiki asked sarcastically.  
  
"Only when I am forced to Nabiki."  
  
"Then DIE!!" Nabiki yelled and held out her hand, a beam of energy fired out. Ranma dodged to the side, but the attack had been a feint. She was caught by surprise when Nabiki surged forward and performed a jump kick. She stood there and took the hit, more in shock than anything else. Then Nabiki landed and spun around and he saw that her foot was glowing with power. Hopping back desperately, Ranma watched in fascination as Nabiki's foot impacted the floor and sent up an explosion worthy of Ryoga. The blast pushed Ranma back several feet before she landed.  
  
"Whoa!" Ranma said and upped his respect for Nabiki's fighting skills several notches, she knew for a fact that the middle Tendo daughter hadn't been this good a few weeks ago. Hell she had never practiced martial arts in the entire time he had known her except for a few hours here and there to keep up on basic throws and stuff. Ranma started to pace around the small dust cloud that had formed around the explosion and soon spotted Nabiki stepping out of the hole she had created, a dark aura forming around her as she moved.  
  
"You may have beaten Matilda and Bertha, but they had thought that strength would be all that was needed to beat you. I knew better and asked for skill far and above your own Saotome and you're going to be begging me on your knees by the time I'm done with you. No more will you hurt my family, no more will you get away with hurting my sister with your shallow existence. No more of your freeloading idiot father be getting in my way, you will all pay for ruining the peace and quiet that existed before you showed up." Nabiki mumbled out.  
  
Ranma took a closer look at Nabiki and noticed that her eyes were glazed and her skin was pale and withdrawn as if she was on the verge of exhaustion. Suddenly he knew what to do and ginned, he wouldn't even have to hit her to do it either. Nabiki raised her hands and formed a rather large black sphere of energy as she glared at her. Ranma just grinned and started side stepping again, making sure Nabiki followed her movements.  
  
"Time to die Ranma." She hissed.  
  
"I don't think you have the strength to beat me Nabiki, you may have been given the skill, but you don't' have the spirit to kill me."  
  
"I have enough to kill you ten times over, worm."  
  
"Yeah right, that's why you're about drop in your tracks right?"  
  
"You're wrong, this is enough power to do anything I ever wanted to do." Nabiki yelled and pivoted to fire at Ranma, who had moved herself so that her back was against the safety wall. She just smirked and flipped backwards and fell to the floor below and watched as the black sphere of energy obliterated the safety wall completely. Though she did have to pull some kids out of the way as some of the floor that came crashing down behind her. This was closely followed by Nabiki as she hopped down from above and landed with ease, Ranma wondered how the skills had been given to her since she wasn't using them right. Which looked kind of freaky since she was wearing a white sweater, green slacks and a pair of sneakers.  
  
"Oh boy." Ranma muttered as she scrambled backwards. Maybe her plan wasn't going to work after all, the girl seemed to be getting stronger by the second even as her body seemed to begin wasting away.  
  
Nabiki raised her hand at a slight angle as her aura flared up again and started firing small balls of black energy that spread out all over the place as they converged on her. Scrambling for all she was worth, Ranma dodged and weaved her way through a rather nasty strafing run of explosive rounds Nabiki was giving off. It was almost like fighting Happosai and his stupid bombs. Ranma also noted how Nabiki out of the corner of her eyes, how she was reacting and if it looked like she had a limited amount of power to use. With every shot the girl fired out she would look worse and worse, as if the energy was being drawn right from her life force instead of her Ki. She was glad at least one part of his initial idea about Nabiki's new power was true, either that or she was a great actress, it was just so hard to tell. Ranma watched with narrowed eyes as some of Nabiki's aura seemed to jump out and drain a nearby group of kids of their energy and used it to fuel an even more powerful bombing of the area as Ranma ran and dodged and weaved.  
  
"I've got you now!" Nabiki yelled and laughed.  
  
Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, Ranma tried to dodge, but wasn't fast enough to get out of the way of Bertha's fist as it slammed into her face. Where in the hell had she come from? Ranma stumbled back a few steps to regain her balance, but Nabiki used the distraction to fire off yet another blast of energy and took Ranma right in the chest. It blasted the red head off her feet and into the wall of a nearby store, it shattered under the blow and buried her in a pile of cement and drywall. Ranma cursed herself for forgetting about Nabiki's two goons, she mustn't have hit that one hard enough taken them out as well as she'd had liked, it would take skull as thick as Kuno to throw off the hit she had delivered. She also recalled that they were glowing just like Nabiki and that meant that they were probably as pumped up as Nabiki was.  
  
"Like the super strength and power wasn't enough." Ranma muttered to herself.  
  
Ranma moved slowly, but managed to get a good grip on one of the blocks lying on top of her and pushed it off with a grunt, then pulled herself out of the rubble. She noticed Nabiki and her goons were waiting for her. "That was a good shot Nabiki, but not good enough." Ranma lied as she started to feel the pain from the shot through her chest and back, she hadn't felt anything like this since she screwed up and let Kuno hit her that one time.  
  
"On the contrary Ranma, it was the perfect distraction to get you out of the way for a few seconds."  
  
"Huh?" Ranma gasped out.  
  
"RANMA, PREPARE TO DIE!!" Ryoga screamed just as he kicked Ranma in the shoulder.   
  
Ranma flies off her feet and slams into another wall. Where in the hell did he come from, she thought. "Ow..."  
  
"Oh Ryoga, he's been so mean since you left, abandoning Akane and his responsibilities, shacking up with a new girlfriend, it's been horrible!" Nabiki cried as she latched onto Ryoga's shoulder. Ranma glared as she noticed Nabiki send some of her dark energy into Ryoga. The Lost Boy's face went from angry to murderous in a matter of milliseconds, whatever it was Ranma knew she was in trouble. Ryoga screamed, a sound of incontestable fury and hate, and shot forward like a freight train, pulling his umbrella off his pack, his eyes were coal black and shinning with insane hatred.  
  
"This isn't good." Ranma muttered and jumped to her feet.  
  
This situation was getting too dangerous to keep it where it was and Ranma cursed herself for not taking it outside when she had the chance. It was beginning to look like she was going to have to transform to defeat this threat, but these were her friends, kind of, and she didn't want to hurt them. Ryoga could rot for all she cared, but Nabiki was another story and she needed to find a way to save her before things got to out of hand. A battle plan formed in Ranma's mind and even she knew it was a bad one, but she figured it would work if she took it in steps.  
  
She dodged Ryoga's berserker attack and jumped off the second floor again, landing below and quickly running for the doors to the outside. To bad Matilda had finally made it back to the fight and was waiting for her as she landed. The girl screamed in fury and launched herself forward glowing with fury...and made this horrid sound when Ryoga landed on her, complete with his super heavy umbrella as he knocked her unconscious by slamming her head into the floor and tapping her behind the ear with his umbrella. He didn't even notice or didn't care, all Ranma could see was his new black aura as it flared up.  
  
"Today is the day you die Ranma, no more games, you are going to be bloody smear on the wall as soon as I get my hands on you." Ryoga said evenly, calmly.  
  
Ranma didn't bother to answer as she started to run again, she needed to get outside before she could do much of anything. Even at Ryoga's current power level she could handle him in her Scout form, unfortunately she just couldn't transform in front of a whole mall full of people. She thanked all the Kami in existence that most of the mall goers had ran for it while she was fighting the gruesome twosome earlier.  
  
"Come back here and die you coward!" Ryoga roared.  
  
"Oh there's a good idea." Ranma snapped as she finally reached the main doors to the mall and ran outside. Just like she had remembered, there was an over hang built over the main entrance to provide shade. It was made out of wood and painted in red and gold to attract the eye. She broke to the left just as she made it out side and jumped to the top of the over hang to the surprise of the people watching.   
  
Ryoga burst through the door, shattering it with a single blow as he stalked outside and glared around. The amazed faces of those who had watched Ranma's jump turned to fear as the boy started to glow evilly. He continued to look around for a second, then stopped, looked up, and grinned, his fangs flashing. With a minor push of his feet Ryoga launched himself upward and broke through the over hang and landed on a the edge of the hole as he glared at a surprised Ranma.  
  
"Since when can you actually think, pig boy?" Ranma muttered.  
  
"Nabiki opened my eyes Ranma, I am seeing thing in their true light for the first time in years. I know you for the coward that you are now Saotome and I will have my revenge even if I have to kill all that you hold dear." Ryoga sneered and started walking forward.  
  
Ranma gaped at the change in Ryoga's presence, whatever Nabiki had done to him it seemed that she had turned him into a true killer, he wasn't just saying it anymore. There wasn't a trace of compassion left in the Lost Boy's eyes and Ranma sighed, she had known deep inside that it could come down to this one day, she had hoped to avoid it though. She stood up as she crossed her arms across her chest and made her bracers flare into visibility, her aura flaring around her. Ryoga stopped and frowned in confusion.  
  
"For what it is worth Ryoga, I hoped it would never come to this, but you have forced my hand."  
  
Ryoga just laughed. "Fool, you may have once beaten Saffron, but I am much stronger than him now and I will have your blood by the time this fight is over."  
  
"VULCAN KNIGHT SENSHI, MAKE UP!!" Ranma yelled and flared with blue light.  
  
"DIE YOU HONORLESS FUCKER!!" Ryoga yelled and launched himself forward.  
  
Just as Ranma's transformation finishes and looked Ryoga over again, but his increased speed is too much and it is already too late. Ryoga is a trained fighter and can move much faster than what most others, his umbrella was already in motion as Ranma surged with power to transform and it slammed into her just as she was finishing her power up. With a sickening sound as it hit her, Ranma was launched off the top the over hang with a scream as she felt some of her ribs shatter with it's impact, slightly amazed that the Lost Moron had avoided her block. She landed on the hood of a car about fifteen feet away and shattered the front window with her head, stars exploded in her eyes as the glass shattered around her.  
  
Laughing insanely Ryoga hopped off the overhang and landed on the hood of the car and planting his knee in Ranma's stomach. "You're finished Saotome, revenge is mine." Ryoga hissed as his arm rose up, his fist glowing with black power.  
  
Ranma groaned in pain.  
  
"Mars Flame Sniper!"  
  
"Huh?" Ryoga gasped and snapped his head around just in time to be taken in the chest with a magical arrow made of fire and was blown off the car with a curse. Ranma barely noticed as she struggled to get back into the fight. Off to the side Ryoga was pulling himself out of a small crater as he struggled to his feet and growled evilly and noted three of the Sailor Scouts standing on the cars around him. Mars was on top of a nearby car with another arrow of fire ready to fire, aim right at Ryoga. Off to the side Jupiter was also charged up and ready to fire off a devastating flood of electricity as she glared at the Lost Boy, though he did look like her old boyfriend.   
  
Mercury was by Ranma's side checking her over for wounds and other things with her hand held computer. She was surprised at the amount of power the boy must have had to injure one of their more effective members, but she figured that it was because of Ranma's lack of experience with the powers that Usagi had given him. Though the computer was telling her that he was a lot stronger than he had been several days ago, but right now he had several broken bones and a bit of internal bleeding that her powers were taking care of. Off to the side she watched as Mars and Jupiter attacked Ryoga, blowing up the area. She ignored it for now and went back to Vulcan, to her surprise her computer was telling that Ranma was just stunned. What few cuts she had received from the windshield were already disappearing as her healing ability kicked in.  
  
"Come on Vulcan, get up." Mercury said.  
  
"I feel like I was stepped on by an elephant."  
  
"We got your call, sorry it took so long to get here."  
  
"That's alright Mercury, I almost didn't call you."  
  
"Wha...why?!" Mercury asked.  
  
"This is my fight, my friends and family are in danger. I just knew that I was going to have problems curing them without Sailor Moon using her healing abilities." Ranma muttered as she sat up and shook here head, her ribs were killing her.  
  
"Venus and Moon are in the mall trying to track down Nabiki and her helpers."  
  
"They need to be careful to watch out for them, those three have been jacked up in some powerful ways."  
  
"They can handle it Vulcan."  
  
"Maybe Matilda and Bertha, but I wonder about Nabiki." Ranma said as she slowly climbed off the car.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Nabiki is very good at tactics, she is smart and won't go down like some of your other opponents. She did this to Ryoga, turning his hate and depression into this murderous rage. We have to help them."  
  
"We will Vulcan."  
  
"Ryoga is going to pay for doing this though, his anger is always getting him in trouble."  
  
"Well help all of them Vulcan, don't worry."  
  
"Yeah, Yeah."  
  
Ranma stretched and loosened up her body for the battle to come, she had seriously underestimated Ryoga and allowed him to get a good shot in, and it had nearly cost her the whole battle before it started. She sighed when she noticed she was in her female outfit again, the coat/dress combo that showed off her breasts and legs by emphasizing them for all to see. At least she had on a pair of decent black leather boots. She didn't think she would ever get used to how she looked in it, one of Happosai's wet dreams. It even gave her a bit of make up and ear rings shaped like little stars.   
  
Sigh.  
  
**********  
  
Tenchi and the others were beginning to wonder about Washu lately, she had spent the last few hours shouting insults and cheering something in her lab and it was getting strange. They were tempted to go in there and see what was going on, but she had a nasty tendency to want to take samples whenever they came into the lab.   
  
"You think we should go in there?" Tenchi asked.  
  
"I don't know Lord Tenchi." Ayeka said and cuddled up to him.  
  
"Back off Princess, Tenchi is mine!" Ryoko yelled and cuddled up to his other side.  
  
Tenchi sighed and wondered why they acted like this, it wasn't as if he encouraged them to act this way.  
  
Katsuhito just sipped his tea and smirked at his grandson's plight.  
  
**********  
  
Much to Moon and Venus' surprise, the mall was almost completely deserted. They were used to arriving at a battle and spending a few minutes telling people to leave or waiting for them to finish running away. It was pretty rare that they were late like this, but Ranma hadn't called them until well after the fight started so there wasn't much for them to do but get down to business. The damage to the mall seemed to be isolated to the open areas around the large fountain in the middle of the mall and up on the second level. The two girls were also surprised that they hadn't been attacked yet, they weren't exactly being stealthy.  
  
They had found one large woman in a two piece suit half buried in the floor near that fountain. It had been pretty obvious that she had been attacked and beat to within an inch of her life. The large bruise on the back of her head had stood out as well, so much that even Sailor Moon could see it with ease. They walked around a little more and noted all the broken walls, or signs of someone being sick. Neither of them wanted to mention the horrid smell in the air, they were too innocent girls to have any knowledge of what it was.   
  
"Why did that jerk wait so long before calling us?" Venus asked.  
  
"I don't know, but he is still pretty new at this and the last few weeks have been pretty bad for him."  
  
"Him? He is the most irritating and arrogant guy I have ever met, I still don't see what you see in him."  
  
"He's not that bad Venus."  
  
"He's a jerk."  
  
"Venus, he hasn't even done anything to you."  
  
"He's a pervert, a jerk, and...and...and...A PERVERT!!"  
  
"What do you have against him then?"  
  
Venus growled. "He was ogling me."  
  
"WHAT?! When did he do that?"  
  
"At the temple the other day when we were all running around."  
  
"That was your fault Venus!" Moon yelled.  
  
"Hmph!!"  
  
"Heheheheheheh..."   
  
Venus and Moon looked around and spotted a small girl leaning against the wall a feet away. She had short brown hair and a an evil aura all around her, beside her stood a very big woman that looked like she too had seen in a large fight. Moon and Venus realized that this woman was perhaps the ugliest thing they had ever seen and nearly gagged at the sight of her. The small one smirked at them and stepped forward. "It looks like Ranma still has his odd affect on women, kind of reminds me of his first meeting with Akane."  
  
"You must be Nabiki." Sailor Moon said.  
  
Nabiki nodded. "These is my friend Bertha, Matilda is in a hole back there and seems to have been taken out for the duration. I'm here to take Ranma back with me, you can't stop me Sailor Moon."  
  
"I can't let you do that." Moon said.  
  
"I don't want to fight you Sailor Moon, just leave Ranma to us and we won't have a problem."  
  
"No go, I don't like the jerk but he doesn't have to go anywhere with you." Venus said and took a defensive stance, she wanted to be ready to fire off a Crescent Beam in an instant.  
  
"Ranma isn't going back to the life he had in Nerima Miss Tendo, he told us all about what happened to him when he was there. He doesn't want to go back to that." Moon said.  
  
"He has no choice because it is his responsibility." Nabiki snapped.  
  
"No, he has a choice and he made it."  
  
Nabiki flared up and screamed, but Venus was faster and fired off a Crescent Beam before anything could happen and blew the girl through the side of a store. Bertha rushed forward and tried to punch Venus, but she dodged and fired again, taking the large woman right in the chest. Sailor Moon fired a beam out of her sceptre and hit Nabiki before she could get herself out of the rubble of the wall, then turned it on the large woman. Both cried out and collapsed as a burst of dark energy left the two girls and flew off before Moon could do much of anything.  
  
"That was easy." Venus said as she tapped Bertha with her toe.  
  
"I know, I wonder why?" Moon said.  
  
**********  
  
Mars and Jupiter slammed into the roof of cars as they fell out of the sky and landed hard. Their bodies were covered in bruises from being hit by the umbrella welding boy, his berserk fury was impossible to break through. He was like an unstoppable dreadnaught. Only Vulcan seemed to have any luck with him and that was growing less and less by the moment, because she was injured and bleeding internally. Mercury rushed over to them and made sure they were okay with her computer before she allowed them to get up off the cars.  
  
"How in the hell is this guy so strong, we keep hitting him and hitting him with our strongest attacks and yet he won't stay down." Jupiter complained.  
  
"Vulcan said he was given some kind of dark power, my scans show that he has been completely overwhelmed by the power."  
  
"Overwhelmed? He's almost completely unstoppable so far, he shrugs off Mars' fire attacks, my lighting, and even your cold attacks. How do we fight that?"  
  
Mercury had her computer out and was scanning Ryoga again. "My scans of him can not find any kind of major weakness of any kind, just that whenever Ranma hits him something odd happens."  
  
"Something odd?" Jupiter asked.  
  
"His energy spikes for a second, becoming unstable in some way, but I can't lock onto it very much.  
  
They turned to watch as Vulcan flipped over Ryoga and kicked him in the head dozens of time, landed and fired off a Ki attack that Ryoga took in the chest and shrugged off. His insane laughing was getting annoying too. "Hey Mercury, didn't Vulcan fire off one of those blasts at the school the last time we had to fight and created that crater?" Jupiter asked.  
  
"Yes, these blasts are more controlled though, she is also running out of energy and if this keeps up she will lose." Mercury said.  
  
"Find anything yet Mercury?" Sailor Moon asked as she landed beside them. Venus landed off to the side and walks up.  
  
"Those three in the mall went down pretty easy, what's up with this one?"  
  
"His power levels are through the roof, on par with Vulcan even in her current form. We haven't had a chance to do much of anything just yet."  
  
"How about if I use the crystal on Ryoga?" Sailor Moon asked.  
  
Mercury types on her computer for a few seconds and shakes her head. "The results are inconclusive."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"I can't tell what will happen."  
  
"Oh, um...how about if we do that one attack where we all fire at him at once and overwhelm him?"  
  
Mercury typed again and nodded. "That plan has a better chance of working, but we need a distraction for it to work so that we can surround him and hit him from all sides."  
  
Vulcan spun low and came up underneath Ryoga's jump and used the Amaguriken to slam over a thousand full power punches into Ryoga's stomach. It sent the Lost Boy flying back and hurt Vulcan's hand more than she had anticipated, but gave her a few seconds breathing room to rest up come up with a new attack. Ryoga was pounding the hell out of her, even in this Scout form of hers, and her damage was beginning to slow her down. If she took much more she knew there as a chance that he would win and put her down. Vulcan also smiled, it was also the best fight she'd had in a long time, the moron wasn't holding back for once and his skills were showing through.   
  
It was too bad that something like this had to happen for him to go all out though, it would have been fun a few months a go. Now it was just dangerous and he was hurting the Scouts, she was glad they all had that magical healing or Ranma would have had to kill him by now and that was something that she had decided not to do just yet. Using a lethal technique didn't feel right yet, it was like fighting Saffron in a way. She hadn't killed him until every last option had been taken away and she still had a few ideas about how to deal with Ryoga, now all she had to do was find the strength to make sure she pulled it off. She looked over at the Scouts and saw that they were trying to get her attention, so she made couple of hops and landed near them. "What's up?"  
  
"We have a plan, but we need Ryoga distracted for at least twenty to forty seconds." Mercury said.  
  
"Forty seconds? I don't know if I can do more that five at this rate, he isn't holding back and I'm beginning to feel it."  
  
"Just keep him focused on you so that we can surround him and throw everything at him." Jupiter said.  
  
Vulcan nodded. "That I can do, I'll move the fight in between those two trucks over there to limit our fight area."  
  
"That's too small, just keep him right were he is and we'll take care of the rest." Mercury said.  
  
"Okay."  
  
"RANMA!!" Ryoga screamed as he returned to the fight.  
  
"Hey Ryoga, I thought you got lost there for a minute there."   
  
"DIE!!" Ryoga screamed and ran forward.  
  
Vulcan just grinned and ran forward, they slammed together in a bang, and their fists flying as Ranma went on the defensive. He pulled Ryoga in the beginning of the spiral, dodging at faster and faster speeds and pushing the last of his strength into this attack. Ryoga's enraged face looked confused for a second, then he just smirked and shook his head. Ranma just kept the attack up and started to use the Soul of Ice to cool the air.  
  
"You don't expect that to work on me do you Ranma? I know how to defeat that attack you know."  
  
"Maybe, but it's worth a try."   
  
"Why try, it won't work now that I'm aware that you were going to do it."  
  
"Isn't it?" Vulcan said and vanished before Ryoga's eyes.  
  
Then it started as Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, and Moon all fired at Ryoga as they formed a circle and laid into him at one second intervals. Hitting him from the front, back, and sides before he had time to recover and counter attack. This went on for some minutes with Ryoga taking more punishment than they had thought possible, then Vulcan re-entered the fight glowing like a blue star as the jewel on her chest flared to life.   
  
"DIVINE ASSAULT BOMB!!" Vulcan yelled and fire the blue energy that had gathered in her hands directly into Ryoga's torso. It exploded and sent him flying backward, through the trailer of one of those trucks, through a wall, and deep into the middle of the mall.  
  
"Whoa!!" Mars said, she had only seen that kind of strength used by the Outers when they were really pissed off.  
  
"I'll say." Venus said, impressed despite herself.  
  
"What about Ryoga?" Mercury said and turned to Moon, but she was gone. They all turned to see her sprinting for the mall to check on the Lost Boy.  
  
"Oh great..." Vulcan said and collapsed to her knees as the Vulcan transformation vanished. She passed out at their feet.  
  
"Vulcan!" Mars and Mercury cried out and knelt down to help their friend out. "Come on you two, we have to get her out of here." Mercury said.  
  
"Why should we bother?" Venus snapped. "I never asked to have her on the team."  
  
Mercury gasped and looked up at Venus, she had never heard anything like that from her friend before. She stood up slowly and glared in Venus' eyes, then flipped open her computer and scanned her friend. Almost instantly she started to detect traces of dark energy on her and Jupiter, with smaller amounts within herself and Mars. "I'm detecting Dark energies within all of us, especially Venus and Jupiter, they have the highest concentrations."  
  
"What?!" Venus gasped and looked down at herself and suddenly realized that she had been acting differently than normal. She screamed and started running around them in circles and waving her arms. "GETITOUT GETITOUT GETITOUT GETITOUT!!"   
  
"Geeze Venus, It's not that bad, we just need to have Moon cleanse us when she returns." Jupiter said and shrugged.  
  
Mars flipped open her communicator. "Sailor Moon?"  
  
"What's up Mars?"  
  
"We need you to get back here as soon as possible."  
  
"I'm still trying to find Ryoga so that I can get rid of that dark energy in him."  
  
"Just find where he landed Meatball Head!"  
  
"Hey Pyro, I already did that, he wasn't there so I was looking around for him! Moon snapped right back.  
  
"If you don't find him in the next few minutes we'll meet you inside the mall, we need you to cleanse Venus and Jupiter, they've been given a bit of dark energy and we need it taken care of."  
  
"Sailor Moon, we need it done on all of us. Were all being effected by it in some way." Mercury said.  
  
"Okay, I'll meet you guys in a few minutes. Those girls we took care of are gone as well, I can't find anything about where they went."  
  
"That's alright, we'll deal with it when we get a chance."  
  
**********  
  
To Be Continued...  
  
Ending Notes - 


	8. Ranma vs Ryoko Round 2

Notes -   
  
**********  
  
The Replacement  
  
Chapter 07  
  
Cory D. Rose  
  
ertle2@msn.com  
  
(c) 2002  
  
**********  
  
Two weeks ago it had been a tower, a tower that was once the center piece to a large city that had dominated everything within sight. Then over the course of just seven days a force of ungodly power had swept the city and thousands of others like it off the face of the earth and left nothing but shattered rubble in it's wake. The only thing to survive had been the tower and even it's purpose had been lost to the sands of time and fragile human memory. Over ten thousand years had passed since that time so long ago and the tower had stood undefeated through it all, surviving everything from tornados, to fire, to the most powerful of elements the planet had to throw at it. But as with all things it's strength had lessened with time and no one was there to make sure it stayed strong. Instead it just grew older and older, lost deep within the woods where no human being had ever seen it, or even recognized it for what it truly was. No, this tower of crystal that had once shone like a beacon in the night was itself now a pile of scorched and darkened rubble. Finally reduced to insignificance by a storm unlike anyone had ever seen.  
  
It's purpose was unknown, but it's destruction had taken a mix of age, fire, wind, and the grand daddy of all lightning bolts to finally break the tower's hold and crack it open like an egg. Whatever was inside had been all but destroyed by the fire or blown away on the winds, but even then three floors of the tower still stood and most of the contents intact even after ten thousand years of neglect. Even now portions of the forest that had grown around the tower continued to burn and send a pillar of smoke high into the sky to tell of the fall of something nature had been trying to reclaim for thousands of years. This tower, you see, was a construction of Magic. By design and purpose and it was still strong enough to last another ten thousand years even in its current state. It had the potential to be dangerous if it's remaining store of knowledge and magic fell into the wrong hands. The wards that had been there to keep people from reaching the tower were no longer in place. Weakened by the fire and destroyed by the lightning. The contents of the top most floor had gone up in the explosion, sending things high into the air an landing as much as half a mile away. A couple hundred yards away, at the base of a smoldering tree, was a small cylinder.   
  
It was about two feet long and several inches wide and nearly opaque with age. So it was impossible to see through the glass portion that made up it's center. A vague shape could be seen within its depths, but it wasn't moving and there didn't appear to be any way to even get into the device without breaking it. As the day slowly passed and the sun finally went down on the shattered tower, the world seemed to change in the blink of an eye. Several shadows moving from tree to tree converged on the tower and took up positions around it. They glided across the ground with ease that defied explanation. They rose up on the surviving trees and appeared to be look the area over for several minutes. Silently surveying everything around them. They didn't appear to have eyes, but as they moved around it was possible to tell that they were looking for something.  
  
Here and there were the left over remains of a scroll or a book that the constant rain had kept from being destroyed in the fire that still raged around them. These were collected by the shadows by pulling them into their shadow like bodies when they touched that item with any part of their shadow. After several minutes they seemed to converge on the small pod and looked agitated as they waved their arms at each other in a silent argument for several seconds. In the end the pod was collected as well and they moved on to what remained of the tower and appeared to walk right through the walls. Using the shadows that the raging fire created all over the tower's surface they by passed the wards and entered the tower. From the outside nothing seemed to happen for close to an hour, but then the tower started to glow with a golden light shining from inside the structure. The light pushed itself out from every crack and hole and lit up the area for several minutes as it steadily increased in brightness and power.  
  
With a rumble the land around the tower started to shimmer with energy as the light seemed to permeate this as well. Then in a sudden violent wave the fire around the tower was nearly blown out as a blast of energy exploded from the tower and it started to glow. In the blink of an eye it vanished, leaving a hole in the ground nearly a quarter of a mile deep and no signs at all that anything had ever been there in the first place. The golden energy washed over the devastated landscape and extinguished all the fires and blew the leaves off the closest trees for half a mile in ever direction.   
  
At the same time, all across the world, items of power that had started to glow when the tower was brought down stopped glowing and lost whatever magic had caused them to react in the first place. One item had a different reaction, it was a small brown cat sleeping behind a dumpster in one of the seeder parts of Tokyo. Its brown fur was matted and grimy from years of living on the street. At the same time it was giving off a smell that could have dropped a dog at ten yards and had a set of claws peaking out from the ends of it's paws that could slice through nearly anything.  
  
Between one second and the next it's eyes snapped open and started to glow with an eerie golden light. It opened its mouth to yowl in pain as the glow intensified and it brain started to heat up as if it was on fire. The pain was intense enough that the thing started to roll around in a panic, but the glow kept intensifying until it it's eyes rolled back up into it's head and it fell over gasping for air. The golden energy suddenly formed around it's head and started to shrink in on itself as it grew brighter and brighter. It centered in on it's forehead and took the shape of a wotans cross and burned the fur to a fine golden color and stabilized into cross shaped bit of fur. Its eyes snapped open and the cat looked up into the sky and truly saw the stars for first time in it's life and understood what she was seeing.  
  
"Well $#%#, this is just what I need." The cat said to itself as it rolled to it's feet and looked down at it's body. "F&%$# Moon Magic strikes again." Then it's voice took on a higher pitched mocking tone. "Hey I got an idea, lets ruin the advisers lives by making them not only intelligent, but immortal as well. That way we never have to replace them and they can be subservient slaves forever and ever..."  
  
"Damn those B&%#$!"  
  
The cat sighed as it shook itself and tried to get a better idea of what had happened and ignored all the information cascading through its head. "I have to find the Princess and figure out what happened the others." It muttered to itself. "How the hell should I know where she might be? Probably bedding some outlander prince like they always did in the old days."  
  
"Well Sol isn't going to take this body snatching $%&# sitting down!" It yelled out and swatted a trash can with it's hind legs and sent it flying out of the alley, arching over the street, and bouncing off some guys head. Instantly nearly knocking him out in the middle of the sidewalk, causing him to stagger several feet out into the road just as a bus was coming along. The screech of tires and screams of shock filled the background. Though Sol didn't seem to notice as she continued to grumble to herself. "I will figure out what the hell has happened and make that $%&# pay if the princess has been injured!"  
  
"But first I need to take care of this little hair problem of mine." Sol muttered under her breath as she noticed that she was in major need of a good grooming. She licked her paw and started getting to work on the mess, then made a face and started spitting all over the sidewalk. "Someone is going to pay for doing this to me and when I get my paws on them they are going to be in a world of hurt!"   
  
"The kitty is talking."   
  
Sol turned and glared that the homeless bum sitting nearby, almost completely covered in garbage and papers. She wasn't even going to think about what he was wearing, looked like, or for the sake of her tortured nose, what he smelled like. The wotans cross on her forehead started to glow. "I do not need this crap right now human."  
  
"You're cute."   
  
Seconds later the alley lights up with a golden flash of energy that bursts from the mouth of the alley, startling several people who notice it, this is followed by a high pitched scream. As several people run from the scene or go to investigate a the small brown cat walks out of the alley looking as innocent as a smelly cat can without drawing to much notice. Then glares at all the people around her as they all start to smell something do by their feet and quickly leave the area as fast as they can. Then she hops up on the nearest fence and quickly begins to make her way down the street with her tail up in the air. Back in the alley there is a stunned homeless man laid out completely naked in the middle of the alley way in a pile of old boxes and rotting trash.   
  
"I am not 'cute'." Sol mutters under her breath when she gets far enough away, then goes about looking for anything that might be familiar in any way. There had to be some reason why she had awoken, it wasn't often that the Earth Adviser was needed or even called to duty. Though there was one thing that she had to take care of above all others and that was making some improvements to her current body. How her Star Crystal had ended up in this mangy flee bag was beyond her, but there was no way she would allow things get any worse and that meant a bath. She shuddered, then after that would be a bit of grooming.  
  
**********  
  
Groaning in pain, Ranma crawled out of his sleeping bag and gasped for air as he held his ribs. Ryoga had worked him over pretty good, enough to have put him in the hospital for a few weeks if he hadn't had a magical healing ability to pull him back together in such a short time. Even now two days after the fight he felt like he had been kicked by a mule and was thanking the Kami that he didn't have to be back in school for another three weeks. By then, according to Ami, he should be back to normal. The only problem was that in about four days he had a fight with that girl and he knew that he wouldn't be ready for it. As he thought this he grabbed one of his silk shirts and grit his teeth as he slowly pulled it on over his bandages. He hadn't felt like this in a very long time, not since his old man had 'toughened' him up by subjecting his to an hour of being hit with a 2X4 on his legs, chest, back, and arms that one time a few years back. Oh that had been such a lovely and well meaning thing to experience.  
  
The old fart hadn't held back either, hitting him as hard as he could and calling him a wimp when he fell down or he started bleeding. Enduring that once a week for three years had been mind numbingly painful, but it had worked, not matter how cruel the training itself was on the body. It normally took him about a week to recover from the training, though he was still forced, while injured, to go through the morning work out no matter how injured he was. The life of a martial artist is fraught with peril and all that crap, he had heard it enough times. So he had no plans to back out of his fight with that girl on the grounds that he was injured, she could throw those blasts of energy, but didn't seem to have any real training at all. Crawling to his knees he pulled his pants, socks, and a pair of shoes and backed his way out of the tent. Each step felt like someone was driving a red hot poker through his chest and side where Ryoga had bruised his internal organs.  
  
The sun was just coming up as he stood up completely and looked into the sky. He had about an hour or so before Usagi showed up for their daily sparing. He hadn't been able to really do much the last few days, but she understood why he insisted she continue to show up. Surprisingly she had already started to unconsciously use a bit of that weird magical aura of hers in her sparing with him. Increasing her speed and sense of awareness ten fold. The only thing he couldn't get her to see was that he was teaching her how to fight, not a new sport. She did not have the drive that drove most fighters to do better and better, instead she learned simply because he said so. He didn't like that, but had been hesitant about pushing her on the subject because he really couldn't see any really good reason to change her. Her heart guided her in all her decisions and it made her fight defensively.  
  
Anything Goes was a 'hard' art, designed for maximum damage and destruction. While Usagi would make an expert in judo and tai chi envious of her control and speed. Ranma didn't know those styles as well as once did, the old man had only covered the basics and let him adapt the moves into Anything Goes however he wished. To correct that he would have to practice them again, but with his current injuries he couldn't even call up his new gravity technique to work his muscles. Moving away from the tent he took up a soft stance and started to move through a couple of the kata he remembered that tai chi master showing him several years ago, running the lesson through his mind as he went from position to position. At the same time another part of his mind was filling his body with Ki and trying to speed up his healing abilities a bit. It would work to a certain extent if he kept it up for a few hours, but after that he would need to rest for a few hours.  
  
He didn't pay any attention to the time as he ran through his morning work out and was quite surprised when he suddenly got a flash of something through his mind. Stopping, he looked around to see if something had distracted him, but the park was till quiet this early in the morning. Closing his eyes again he started over and focused his mind to speeding up his healing again, but there was another flash of something and he was just able to get a direction as he turned and looked out of the park entrance. There was something there, something he couldn't quite identify with all his experience as a fighter. Whatever it was it was growing stronger and heading this way at a high rate of speed.  
  
Frowning, he stepped into a crouching stance beside a nearby tree and watched the area around him. The feeling was stronger now and he could feel apprehension and happiness within his mind along with something he had never experienced before. Figuring out emotions had never been a skill he could pick up with any accuracy. Then there was a flash of relief in the back of his mind and he watched as Usagi ran into the park at a full run, her long blond hair trailing out behind her. She ran over to his camp site and looked around and he felt a bit of worry and annoyance run through his mind. Shaking his head he stepped out from beside the tree and walked over to the campsite where Usagi had just ducked into his tent. Her legs were sticking out of the tent flap as he got close enough to get a good look at her pink shoes.  
  
He smirked as she crawled the rest of the way in, turned around and stuck her head out the flap and glared at him. "Hi." He declared with a small wave.  
  
"Where were you?"  
  
"Over in those trees." He indicated with a flip of his thumb in the right direction.  
  
"What in the world were you doing over there?" She asked.  
  
"I felt something heading in this direction and thought it might be another enemy so I ducked back there to keep it from seeing me, then you come along..."   
  
"You thought I was a monster?!" Usagi yells.  
  
"I think it was the link we share, I could feel your emotions somewhat and I didn't know why until you came into the park."  
  
Usagi crawled out of the tent and Ranma got a good look at her normal half shirt that showed off her belly and tight shorts. Just seeing it made him feel weird, kind of perverted, but he tried to not to show it as she gave him an odd look and smiled at him. "So what kind of training will we be doing today?"  
  
"I had a few things in mind earlier, but I wasn't sure if you would want to learn them or not."  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"I was considering teaching you some of the soft martial arts styles, the ones where you can use your opponents strength against them instead of overpowering them in savage hand to hand combat. I was thinking of a few Tai Chi moves and perhaps some basic Judo."  
  
"What about this Anything Goes you've been showing me?"  
  
"These are going to be the Anything Goes versions of Tai Chi and Judo. The moves are very adaptable in a fight and can give your enemy quite a nasty surprise if you use them right."  
  
"Sure!" Usagi gushed and blinked as she suddenly remembered something. "Oh yeah, Makoto wanted to know if she could come by and practice with you in the mornings."  
  
Ranma froze for a second, on the verge of telling her no, when her eyes went huge and she was suddenly right before him begging him to accept. "PLEASE?!"  
  
"Why?"  
  
"She feels bad about what she did to you and wants to make up for it by making breakfast and sparing with you."  
  
He frowned a little. "She tried to have me branded a pervert in front of the whole school and has been going out of her way to ignore me for over a week. Why now?"  
  
Usagi sighed. "She and Minako both feel bad about the way they were treating you, that thing on the roof of the school you fought filled them with a kind of dark energy that made them act that way and after it was taken out instead of the energy going away like it normally does it just sat there and festered."  
  
"Even Ami was treating me pretty badly Usagi, though no where near as bad as those two."  
  
She nodded. "Yes, but that Youma was affecting you too, remember how you used your looks to steal Umino's books? That was the creature as well, it made Ami and everybody else distrust you to make things even worse."  
  
Nodding to himself he figured that could have been it. "So Makoto doesn't want to kill me anymore?"  
  
"No!" Usagi yelled and glared at him for being so stubborn.  
  
"Then she can come by in the morning and spar, but right now we need to get to your training so less talk and more work!" Ranma yelled and moved into his tickle attack.  
  
Usagi screamed and giggled as he chased her back and forth across the area for their morning run.  
  
**********  
  
Two days, eight hours, thirty four minutes, and twelve seconds. Minako looked over the edge of the bed as Artemis glared at her from his position on her pillow and whimpered a bit. The cat had been lecturing her about her conduct and total lack of common sense for her attacks on Ranma at school a few days before. For blaming him for her attack when it accidentally hit her and sent her and everybody else into that lustful frenzy. So she had made a tiny little mistake, chased after a boy with a tight buns in an attempt to see what he was like in bed, on the floor, in the grass, and the kitchen. It wasn't her fault! The cat had to shut up eventually and she would be able to finally get this mess put behind her and move on. All she had to do was apologies to Ranma for her actions, treating him like dirt, and trying to seduce or embarrass him in public. She had tried to do both now.  
  
Minako whimpered a little more.  
  
"When are you going to apologize to Ranma for your actions Minako?!" Artemis snapped.  
  
"The next time I see him."  
  
"You know where he is, go and do it now, other wise it's going to be weeks before you see him again and you need to put this whole thing behind you."   
  
"The longer the wait the better it will be!" Minako muttered.  
  
"Yeah right! For you! Now go over there and apologize to him before he holds your actions against you for the next few years."   
  
"I don't wanna!" Minako pouted and folded her arms.  
  
Artemis sighed. He had no idea why, but Minako had these rather odd mood swings that made her totally irresponsible and flighty. She could swing from serious during a battle to mischievous at the drop of a hat, from extremely flighty to a stalker even quicker than that if the right guy came along. It was perfectly normal for a person from Venus to be like this, it was the way their brains were wired after all. Still there were times that the whole race just drove him up the wall with the ways they did things. As Sailor Venus Minako was even worse than most of her people, she was the Scout of Love and could actually feel people emotions with a bit of low level empathy that would grow over the years. Now if only he get her to grow up and take a bit of responsibility for her actions. That course of action seemed to be completely impossible though.  
  
For a second the irritated white moon cat considered trying to talk Ranma into making a pass at her to quicken things up, but had to slam his head against the wall to get the picture of Minako being more than willing to play around with him out of his head. He got thrown out the window enough already, whenever she wanted some privacy, he didn't need to add bedroom fun to the list of reasons to lose a night of sleep as well. "Minako! You are going to have to take care of this eventually, do it now and save yourself a bunch of aggravation and time."  
  
"I'll do it later." Minako muttered stubbornly.  
  
Now he was starting to lose his temper, again. Narrowing his eyes, he hissed at her and bound out of the room before he tried to claw up her ankle to relieve a bit of stress. Minako sighed as he left and slowly peaked around the edge of the bed to see if the white cat was playing a trick on her. When his head didn't appear around the edge of the door she slowly stood up and shook her hair out. Finally she had a bit of time to think for herself without the cat nagging at her to fix all her problems. Like an apology was going to cut it, she had plans to do just that, but she had to take care of the girls at school as well. It was still three weeks away and she was going to try and explain to everyone that she had made a mistake about him. There were already rumors going around about how the guy hadn't been seen since that day at school when she and Makoto had attacked him.  
  
She felt bad about that now, though at the time she had been way to angry with him to even think straight. There had to be a way to make up with him that wouldn't require a night in the sack. He was cute, so the thought had come to her almost instantly and she had nearly went off and done just that. Then Artemis the Nag had appeared and spent the last two days lecturing her about what she should do and she had shelved the plan as nearly impossible. He didn't like her anymore and seducing him was next to impossible if that little scene at the shrine was any indication. She wanted to rage at the heavens for giving all the good looking guys to Usagi, how the girl pulled it off she had no clue. Theories yes, but no clue how she did it except that she had drawn in Mamoru, Seiya, and now Ranma like a magnet draws in metal. All cute, all built, all of them with enough sex appeal to satisfy three women at once.   
  
She sighed again, her love life was in the toilet and she was standing here wondering how many more hunks her best friend and Queen was going to pull into their little circle. Would it be to much to ask for her to have on boyfriend that could be the perfect man for her? Cute, rich, and willing to let her fight monsters in her spare time? No, the only guy she had ever found like that was Alan and he had fallen in love with her old best friend and did it all right behind her back while she was fighting crime. She wanted to kick him one right in the balls for doing that to her, but she loved them both too much for that to happen. Then she would just slap the across the head a few times to show them what she thought to their relationship. Now she had to put up with Ranma, someone she wanted for herself and at the same time made her want to smack him a few times just for good measure.  
  
Clenching her fist she glared at the unseen Ranma and growled, she would find a way to make up with him. Then she would belt him one right in the nose for leading her on! Out in the hallway Artemis hung his head and sweatdropped as his charge shifted through another completely unpredictable series of thoughts and emotions that would, in the end, lead to her either making things right again or putting Ranma in the hospital. As quitely as he could, he walked down the stairs and into the living room to let her get over whatever her flighty mind had come up with now. As he lay down he was happy for one thing though, at least she wasn't hiding behind her bed now.  
  
"RANMA SAOTOME I WILL APOLOGISE TO YOU AND BELT YOU ONE RIGHT IN THE NOSE!!" Minako screamed suddenly.  
  
'Oh yeah, she's getting back to normal.' Artemis thought to himself and then wondered what exactly this would lead to.   
  
**********  
  
Several days later just as the sun was beginning to come up over the horizon Ranma was packing up the last of his camp site and making sure that he left little or no trace that he'd ever been there in the first place. His body was once again working perfectly as he moved around picking things up and making sure he had everything in order. He didn't have to train with Usagi today and had given her the weekend off to go and be with her friends. Not like she didn't do that anyway, but this was and official break from the training. Along the same lines he still hadn't trained with Makoto either. Even after Usagi had agreed, so he wasn't to sure what she was up to. Still, he figured she would be hanging around Usagi today so he didn't have anything to worry about.  
  
He hadn't told her about the fight he would have with that Ryoko chick today and if all went well she would never know about it. If she even disapproved of the challenge he had a feeling that he might not put his all into it and he had to make sure that didn't happen. Usagi had made it quite clear she didn't like people fighting unless it was for a good reason, like a life or death situation. His fight with Ryoko was a grudge match pure and simple and didn't even come close to what she would find acceptable. So he would have to make things quick if the fight went in a direction he didn't expect.  
  
A couple days earlier he had come up with the idea of moving his camp and had told her that he would spend the day hiking around the city looking some place else to live. Usagi hadn't liked the idea very much, but he wasn't going to just set up in some back alley somewhere. If he did that he would never get a decent nights sleep. Those places had some strange things happen in the middle of the night. He could remember more than once waking up in the middle of the night with some thief trying to steal him and the old man's backpacks and finding out the hard way just how heavy the things were, even when empty. Now that he had the option he didn't want to put up with the hassle. Then he started thinking of the Shrine where the fight was going to be held and what Usagi would think if she found out.  
  
The last time he had been at the shrine where that girl lived had been quite an adventure and ended up with him leaving in a set of stolen clothes and out witting two girls in their own bathroom, sorta. He picked up the clothes he had borrowed from that guy with the pony tail and sat them inside the pack, right on top so that he could return them when he arrived. On the sly of course. Usagi had allowed him to borrow her parents washer and dryer the day before to clean all his clothes, so most of his stuff was in good shape again and didn't smell. With a flip of the canvas top he closed the pack, secured the ties to make sure nothing would fall off, and lifted it to his shoulder as he stood there and glanced at the sun. He had a few hours to get back to that shrine.   
  
For just a second he considered telling one of the Scouts where he would be after all, then decided against it. Just because a part of him wanted one of them there to see him win didn't mean he would admit to it, he was a man after all. That would be weak and he would never be weak in anyones eyes if he could avoid it. Hell if things got bad he could always transform into Vulcan, though he had no intention of that unless the girl was insanely strong. She was quite strong if he remembered her right, but he'd seen her in action twice now and knew that he could beat her with ease. In the last few weeks he'd learned a few things and he was looking forward to testing them out in a real fight against an opponent that could hit back. That made him sigh a little. He was getting rust with all his training and it bothered him just a little. Sure he could do the forms better and faster, but he had no one around to test them on and it wasn't like he could just haul off and start hitting Usagi in their morning training sessions.   
  
The girl had told him more than once that if she was going to learn how to fight it would be simply as a way to get faster and stronger and she would depend on her abilities as Sailor Moon to fight. He didn't like it, but he just couldn't tell the girl that it was for her own good. She would look up at him with those large blue eyes of hers and turn his spine to jelly. If that wasn't the worst bit, he still couldn't figure out what the hell his emotions were trying to tell him every time she did it and that irritated the hell out of him. He just figured he would just never understand girls and left it at that. So he trained, and trained, and trained until he couldn't stand anymore and then he would sit down and start to work on his Ki control. There was an area where he was making leaps and bounds with control and power.   
  
The power that he got as Vulcan seemed to be bleeding over into his untransformed state and it was giving him a minor power up. At first it had been incredibly hard to control and he'd had to limit himself to doing just the most basic attacks, but that had changed in the last few weeks. He was even faster than he had ever been and if that wasn't enough he had learned how to focus his strength as well. That one made him smirk a bit, because when Ryoga showed up again things were going to be on a whole different level than they had before. The last time he practiced with his strength alone he found he could lift a car over his head, toss it a few feet in the air and catch it with only a little difficulty. He'd seen Ryoga lift weights that had to be close to a thousand pounds with one arm, ripping a telephone pole out of the ground and swing it around like a large club, and even shift large ice blocks with his bare hands. The guy was strong, insanely strong, but Ranma had a feeling that he'd finally surpassed him in that one area. Though with two weeks training, even at this advanced level, he might just be imagining things.  
  
With a shrug he adjusted the weight of the pack again and headed out of the park. It would take him nearly two hours of running on fences and over roofs to get out of the city and to the temple where that girl lived. He wanted to be early to make sure he was there first and they couldn't say he was a coward for showing up late. That was another thing about Ryoga that needed to be pounded on a bit. Ranma spotted the direction he wanted to go and jumped to a nearby fence, then to a roof, and started making his way out of the city in the fastest rout he knew of. The only thing that would have been faster was to fly and he couldn't do that. Still it was something to be looked at some time in the future. As he moved he failed to see two things that he should have. The first was that there was a shadow following him about two houses behind him, keeping an eye on his every movement. The other was a brown haired cat with a golden wotans cross on it's forehead.  
  
Sometime later Ranma vaults over a high fence and lands in the grass about fifteen feet below and finds himself standing on the curve of a street. He starts walking, trying to figure out where he is and pulls out a map. As he rounds the curve he traces his path down, then stops, does an about face and heads back the other direction. Ranma was just glad he knew how to read a map of the area or he would have been in trouble. His father couldn't read a map to save his life, instead Ranma remembered that he'd been the map reader since he was about eight or so. About half an hour or so later he noticed that he was leaving the city finally and spotted the road he needed follow in order to make his way to the shrine. This was his second trip out here and he was amazed that Akane had even been able to hit him this far in the first place. Then wondered if something else might have sent him here instead. The girl was insanely strong, but even Ryoga would have problems hitting this distance even when he was in one of his berserker rages  
  
Not that he cared all that much, he was finally away from Nerima and longer he was away the better. The only people that knew that he was there were Nabiki, who was currently being evil and Ryoga, who was missing like usual. So he figured he didn't have that much to worry about unless either of them showed up while he was fighting today. More than likely that would be Ryoga if it happened at all. The chances of Nabiki leaving Nerima herself were kind of remote so he could rule her out as extremely unlikely. So all he really had to worry about was the fight itself. To say Ranma was looking forward to his battle with Ryoko was a little silly, he hated to hit girls and it showed in how he treated them. He was a trained martial artist and knew that meant that he had to accept her challenge no matter what.   
  
It was one of the few rules he still followed. Or else he would dishonor his family school completely, but he still hated to hit a girl no matter what he was starting to think of her. What had happened between them had been a misunderstanding and yet another example of his life where a girl just assumed something and decided to kill him because of it. He wondered how often something like that would happen to him as the years went on. First had been Akane when she found out about his curse, then later on with Shampoo when she gave him the kiss of death and chased him across all of China. Then Ukyo when she had dedicated her life to killing him by any means available just because he had listened to his old man when he was six years old.   
  
At one point in time he had been forced to fight each of them in one form or another and all of them had ended in some strange way or had been the cause of yet another problem for him to solve. It all came down to his father though, he didn't blame anyone else, it would have been unfair. His father had never taught him to think things through to solve his problems, just to hit it as hard as he could until it went down and stayed down. That odd attitude had allowed Akane's temper to edge itself right to the brink and beyond because he refused to admit his faults. Not that he had very many anyway. His life had always been chaotic, but there was something about Jusenkyo that had made it even worse than it had ever been before he arrived at that forsaken place.  
  
He had been forced into not one, but two abusive relationships with both Akane and Shampoo, had his best friend turn on him and swear to ruin his whole life just because he his old man tended to show his back side to everyone he met eventually. Then he had ran into the Sailor Scouts, he liked some of them, but the rest seemed to dislike him for something that one of them had caused in the first place and still blamed him for some reason. Then there was his new powers, he was the Knight of Vulcan, a god of smithing and War (temporarily anyway). Even after all that he was still on everyone's bad side for things he hadn't done or they were convinced he'd done on purpose.  
  
Ami for example thought he'd felt her up that time he saved her and ended up on the receiving end of her temper until that Youma at the school had been defeated. He still wasn't sure what the thing had been, but it had affected everyone's emotions in one form or another. Ami's actions had been because of that thing just like Minako and Makoto's feelings had been influenced as well. After the thing had been defeated everyone had come to their senses, to a certain degree, but they still treated him quite badly at times and he didn't know why. Though recently Ami had cooled down enough to drag his full story out after the battle with Nabiki and Ryoga at the mall. Then Usagi had said that Makoto wanted to apologize, but she hadn't shown up to do that yet so he wasn't holding his breath.   
  
Ranma looked around and found himself near a very familiar road and realized that he was about a mile from the Masaki Shrine. This was the very road he had ran down that day he left in such a hurry, running from that cat like things with the floppy ears, and wondered if anything had changed in the last few weeks. That cat thing had chased him almost all the way to the main road a couple miles back. He remembered his fight with the old man the last time he had been here. He had come down from the Shrine to see who was causing so much noise at the house so early in the morning, that was when they first met. The fight had been a lot of fun and they even ended up leveling most of the Shrine as their attacks got a little out of hand.   
  
That alone had made the fight one of the best he'd had in a very long time and well worth the pain it had caused as far as he was concerned. It made him smirk though, they had no idea that he was a guy and here he was heading back there to fight the one person that did know. Other than his unforeseen dip in the hot pool that changed him back to man, he had spent most of his time there as a girl, a shape he barely tolerated as it was. That reminded him of that Ryoko girl he was going to fight, she looked like a cat in some respects, that tail of hers was a dead give a away, the small fangs that made him wonder if she was a relative of Ryoga in anyway. Oh and those strange ears of hers as well, if they didn't scream out 'weirdo' every time her. Now that he was so close to the place he was able to see that he would arrive on time for the fight. He wandered up the dirt road and over the small hill that led down to the main house where everyone lived. He stopped there and to looked down at the house and the lake beside it and took a second to calm his mind for what was about to happen.   
  
As he stood there he let his senses expand out a bit and glanced to the side as he detected the old man's presence descending through some trees that dominated a nearby portion of the land around the lake. If he recalled right the shrine itself, the one he had helped to level, was in that direction. That must have meant that it was or was in the process of being rebuilt or was fixed up already, hopefully it would survive this battle. With a smirk he kept his senses fixed on the old man and waited for him to get a little closer before he started to slowly walk down the hill towards the house. He wasn't that surprised when the old goat made his appearance and headed right for him a few seconds later.   
  
Ranma also noticed that they guy was carrying a boken just like the last time they met and that he couldn't hear the guy moving as he walked. Just the feel of his the energy in his body. They stared at each other as they met up and took a second to evaluate each other as a threat or a friend. Ranma was surprised to see from the look in the guys eyes that he hadn't been recognized, then remembered once more that no one here had ever seen him as a man. Just a big breasted red head that had caused a lot of problems. He just hoped that they didn't find out about the curse, so long as that was kept quiet every thing would be fine. So Ranma sat his large back pack down and gave him a bow.  
  
"Hello young man, why are you here?" Katsuhito asked.  
  
Ranma slowly rose from is bow and replied. "I got challenged to a fight by a girl named Ryoko, we are supposed to meet here to 'finish things once and for all' as she said."  
  
"A fight you say?"  
  
"Yeah, she jumped to some weird conclusion about me and decided that I had to die for it or something. We agreed to meet here for a match to get things over with." Ranma said, it wasn't quite the truth, but it would work.  
  
"No one informed me of this, when is it to happen?"  
  
"Some time today, we didn't set an exact time for it. She was a little busy cussing at me for insulting her." Ranma said with a smirk.  
  
"What did you do to her?"  
  
"She kept calling me a pervert and insulting me, I have no clue what I did, but my martial arts school won't allow me to refuse a challenge like this. So here I am."  
  
Katsuhito nodded. "What is your name?"  
  
"Ranma Saotome."  
  
The old man's eyes narrow as if looking Ranma over a little deeper. "You don't say?"  
  
"Any relation to the female Ranma Saotome?"  
  
Ranma smirked again, he had not intention of just telling the old man about his curse. "Yep, we train together all the time."  
  
Katsuhito nodded as if confirming something and motioned for Ranma to come to the house with him. "Come on in, most everyone should be up by now. I can have Sasami make you up a bit to eat before you and Ryoko fight."  
  
"Who is Sasami?"  
  
"She does most of the cooking for the house and is the little sister to one of our other guests."  
  
Ranma's eyes lit up, he would never turn down free food. "Food, huh? I could do with a little of that, I forgot to make anything up this morning and haven't had a chance to eat yet."  
  
"You came all the way out here without eating anything first?"  
  
"I was worried about this match because I didn't want to fight a girl in the first place.   
  
"Is there something wrong with Ryoko?"  
  
"Nope, I was raised to think that women were weak and useless by my father. I don't believe that, but I still don't like to fight them, it always causes more problems than it solves."  
  
The old man nodded, he wasn't used to rather blunt answers to his questions, then shrugged it off. "Well, lets head inside and see if there is anything ready for breakfast."  
  
"Sure."  
  
Katsuhito opened the front door and let Ranma head in first and followed after him so that he could shut the door. They could immediately tell that something good was being cooked for dinner and Ranma started to drool.   
  
"That smells great!"   
  
"Yes it does, take a seat at the table and lets see if she has anything ready." The old man said.  
  
A little blue haired girl with her hair in long pig tails stepped out of the door that led to the kitchen and sat a bowl on the table, it had several pieces of fruit in it. She instantly reminded Ranma of Usagi because of the odd hairdo, though this girl had a more normal version going for her. Sasami noticed them both and smiled. "I thought I heard something out here." She said happily.  
  
"Good morning Sasami, this is Ranma, he will be joining us for lunch at least."   
  
"Hi." Ranma said with a nervous wave.  
  
"Hi Ranma, sit down anywhere, everyone will be wandering down here in a few minutes now that I've started to set the table." Sasami said as she went back into the kitchen.  
  
Ranma nodded and quickly moved over to a nearby chair and sat down. "I'm not taking anyone's place am I?"  
  
"Nope! Normally Washuu would sit there, buy she's been kind of busy lately and hasn't been eating with us like she usually does." Sasami said as she came back out of the kitchen and sat some rolls on the table along with several bowls.  
  
Ranma had to repress a shudder as he heard the name. Washuu was a name he wasn't going to forget any time soon either. She had been the one that caused the whole mess the last time he was here, stripping him of his clothes and running experiments on him like he was some kind of test subject or something. He had woken up in her lab female and quite naked, so he hoped she didn't know about the curse. If she showed he'd know almost right away just from the way she acted the last time they met. He turned back to Katsuhito. "Are you sure eating here before the fight won't cause problems?"  
  
"Why would it?"  
  
"Me and Ryoko will be trying to pound each other after while, some people would be quite happy to make me sit outside and wait until they finished dinner before the fight even started." Ranma explained with a shrug.  
  
Katsuhito nodded. "I have met a few like that back in my youth. On the other hand I never liked people like that and insist that you get a good meal in before you start."  
  
"Sounds good to me." Ranma said with a grin.   
  
**********  
  
Washuu was a bit startled as she sat in her floating chair typing on her holographic computer when one of her alarms went off. She stopped typing for a second before she waved her hand started working on a second holographic computer and brought up a file that was flashing in time with the alarm. Surprisingly it wasn't one of her Mihoshi alerts either, which was quite a shock really. That woman could break into any room in the lab completely by accident, it was uncanny how many experiments the woman had ruined. The alarm was a recent addition as far as she could tell, one she had forgotten about in all the excitement that happened that day now that she recalled the incident. The file was for one Ranma Saotome, a red headed girl that had been her test subject for a few hours. Then Ryoko and Ayeka had received an unwanted, and still unidentified, male visitor in the girls bath area and all hell had broken loose. In the confusion the girl had gotten out of her restraints and vanished into thin air.  
  
The alarm was a general alert alarm that told her that the escapee was being picked up on the sensors again. This time she was outside the house out on the grounds. With a tap of a key she turned off the alarm and activated some of the other sensors she had set up throughout the property and watched as a large screen rose up from the floor off to the side and she was given a panoramic view of the property and had them zoom in on the energy readings. What came up was not what she was expecting at all and scowled at the well proportioned boy walking down the dirt road that led to the shrine. He was about sixteen, maybe seventeen and dressed in loose fitting black pants and a tight red silk shirt with the sleeves missing. His long black hair looked as if it was tied back in a pig tail as he glanced around the area.  
  
"Now why would you register on my sensors as that girl?" She muttered to herself as she moved her holographic computer around and started to run some deeper scans on him.  
  
Her eyebrows started to rise higher and higher as the readings started to match up almost exactly with the readings she had for Ranma Saotome. No two beings had energy readings exactly the same and could easily be used to identify someone if they had a copy of it on record. It took years for a person to change that reading and if a new scan was taken once a decade it could be used as the perfect security device. Even twins had different energy readings. This boy and Ranma seemed to be exactly alike except for one area and that was a gauge she rarely had to bother with. The boy seemed to have a high amount of an energy commonly known as Magic among those cultures who didn't understand science. She had encountered entire cultures set up around the stuff. As a scientist she didn't really believe in 'magic' and figured there had to be a better explanation for it that she had yet to come across. Even stranger, Ranma seemed to have a slight magic level as well now that the was recalling the incident, though nothing on this guy.  
  
She focused the sensors some more and she detected Katsuhito as he made his way down the from the recently rebuilt Shrine and over to the boy. According to the readings the 'magic' level of the boy rose up a bit as Katsuhito approached, as if the boy was getting ready for a fight. A quick run with another program rated him with an higher than normal power level. One high enough to add to her curiosity. A normal human had a power level of about 10 or so if they were in good shape. The boy seemed to have a power level of seventy easily and that rose to seventy five when Katsuhito approached. Then she noticed something else that surprised her even more than his power level. The boy looked like a male version of the picture she had saved of Ranma Saotome.  
  
Washuu cackled as she activated yet a third set of sensors. By the time the boy reached the front steps of the house she would know everything about him. These sensors were illegal throughout the known universe because of what they were capable of doing when used by the wrong sort of people, but she was the greatest scientist in the universe. Therefore her hands were the right hands in which to use them as far as she was concerned. She had no intention of using the sensors to dissect the boy into his component atoms, that would have been such a waste. Within seconds thousands of bits of data were pouring into her main computer core and flashing across the screen of her holographic computers as she worked on two at once.  
  
"BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!! I AM SUCH A GENIUS!!!"  
  
**********  
  
"You!" Ryoko yelled as she entered the front room to eat dinner.  
  
"Hey, hows it going?" Ranma said as he leaned back in his chair. "I got invited to lunch."  
  
Ryoko growled and formed her energy sword, a long blue bar of crackling energy that she planned to shove down the boy's throat.   
  
"Now calm down girl, we'll fight after lunch is over." Ranma explained as he sat forward and carefully placed his foot on the floor. He figured she just might attack him anyway and if she did he wouldn't be there to as she sliced the chair in half.   
  
"I told you I would kill you the next time we met." Ryoko snarled as she floated off the ground and started to fly forward.  
  
Katsuhito glared at her and she came to as stop half a second later with her energy blade hanging above Ranma's head. "You two may fight after lunch is over. I invited him. No need to fight on an empty stomach anyway."  
  
"But he..." Ryoko muttered.  
  
Then Ayeka came down the stairs with Tenchi behind her and stopped and noticed that Ryoko was about to attack some guy. She smiled evilly. "What's this, Monster woman finally found a boyfriend other than my Tenchi?"  
  
Tenchi sighed and rolled his eyes as Ryoko slowly turned and glared at Ayeka.   
  
"Why Princess, did you finally get done dying every strand of your hair that rather ugly color?" Ryoko said mildly. "I know of a number of monkeys that might find grape flavored hair fun to eat."  
  
"Die!  
  
"Bitch!!"  
  
The two girls dove at each other and Tenchi carefully stepped over then and made his way over to the table and sat down across from Ranma. "Um..."  
  
"I take it she just likes to fight?" Ranma asked mildly, watching the girls roll around on the floor trying to pull each others hair out.  
  
Tenchi nodded, a bit surprised that the guy wasn't running for the hills yet. "They do this every so often, I'm not sure why though."   
  
Katsuhito gave Tenchi a look and the boy shrugged a tiny bit to admit the lie.  
  
"I'm surprised Ryoko didn't use the energy blade or that energy blast she tried to use on me the last time we met." Ranma said and winced as the Ayeka girl kicked Ryoko right in the stomach.  
  
"Ah, well, we sorta..." Tenchi tried to explain without really explaining.  
  
"They aren't allowed to anymore." Katsuhito said. "They have leveled the house more than once since they started fighting and the last time it happened we made them fix the damage by themselves. Ever since then they try to cause as little damage as possible."   
  
"Makes sense." Ranma said. "I tend to break things when I fight and I had to learn that lesson quite early. That and how to fix a hole in the wall with one short board and bit of paint.  
  
"Slut!" Ayeka screamed.  
  
"The Great Grape Ape! Hair and all!" Ryoko yelled with a laugh.  
  
"AGHAAAAA! Die!" Ayeka yelled at the top of her lungs and used her fingers to go for Ryoko's eyes.  
  
"Gotta do better than that you purple haired Cormellian Slug Puddle!"   
  
They dove on each other again, snarling in an eerie harmony that reminded Ranma far to much of a pair of cats. Then he saw Ayeka pulling on Ryoko's tail.  
  
Ranma turned back to the table and saw that the little girl Sasami was setting a large plate full of food down on the table. The old man and Tenchi seemed to have forgotten about the two girls even as they made more noise than a heard of elephants moving through a forest full of trees. Hey, all he wanted was the food anyway, who was he to miss a free meal. He gave Tenchi a look and boy just shrugged and motioned for him to dig in. Ranma grabbed a bowl along with the other two guys and quickly filled it with a little of everything. He wasn't sure what he was eating, but it had to be better than anything that Akane had ever made. Akane's last meal ate through the table and nearly took his foot off when it exploded. His legs had only been numb for four hours or so, nothing compared to some of her other concoctions.  
  
Sasami came back out of the kitchen and sat a pie down on the table. "For later when everyone is done. Ryoko! Ayeka! Either take the fight outside or sit down to eat!"   
  
The two girls stopped fighting suddenly. Ranma noticed that Ayeka looked like she was about to punch Ryoko, while Ryoko appeared to be half way phased through the floor. They looked up at Sasami. "Huh?" They asked.  
  
"Eat lunch or go outside to fight. You know the rules! We all agreed to follow them you know and we do have a guest." Sasami said as she pointed at Ranma.  
  
"You!" Ryoko yelled, suddenly remembering what she had been about to do when Ayeka showed up.  
  
"We've established this already." Ranma said around a mouthful of rice.  
  
She suddenly lifted off the floor and with one hand twisted Ayeka around and tossed her on the couch as if she weighed nothing. The purple haired girl looked a bit shocked and looked up just as Ryoko reformed her energy sword about three inches from the tip of her nose. Ayeka scrambled off the couch and half way across the room in the blink of an eye, little electrified logs forming around her in an instant. "Enough of this crap! You, PERVERT, outside now or I will blow you outside by way of the nearest wall."  
  
Ranma raised and eyebrow and shrugged. His hands went to put his bowl down and in an instant he had finished off a good portion of the food on the table. He glanced at the shocked looked on Katsuhito and Tenchi's face and smirked. "Hey, if she isn't going to eat her share I might as well do it since I'm hungry."   
  
Using a napkin to wipe the side of his mouth Ranma stood up and moved away from the table and saw that Ryoko was giving him one of those weird looks that he'd never been able to understand. So he shrugged, smirked at Ryoko, and with two bounces was across the room and out the door before she could even swing her sword at him. She screamed and chased him outside a few seconds later and was shocked to see that he had made his way away from the nearby lake and towards the forest on the other side of the house. "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU, PERVERT!"  
  
Bouncing up and down Ranma stuck his tongue out at her and smacked his bit a couple of times. He just loved to piss off his opponents sometimes. "Bring it on girly!"  
  
Ryoko vanished between one step and the next, only to reappear right in front of Ranma as he was in mid bounce. He contorted in mid air, using two fingers planted in her hair to flip over her and send her off balance with a shove as he flipped higher into the air and landed several yards away. By the time she regained her balance he was already at the tree line and moving into the forest at a full sprint. Then with a single bound he jumped into the trees and seemed to go even faster. Ryoko, to angry to think straight doesn't notice a shadow moving across the ground as it follows her across the property.  
  
**********  
  
"I'm quite amazed really." Ami said as she handed the report card back to Usagi.  
  
"You're surprised?" Usagi said as she looked it over in wonder. The last time she had gotten a B in anything had been back in second grade. "I'm not sure I can even show this to my mom."  
  
"Why is that?" Rei snapped from the other side of the table.  
  
"You know how bad my grades are, if she sees this she's either going to faint or she's going to ask how managed to cheat enough to get my grades up this high."   
  
Minako sighed as she looked at her own report card and wondered if she should hide it from her own parents. Then she turned to look up as Makoto came into the room with a plate of cookies and sat them on the table. "So what did your report card look like?"  
  
"About the same as usual, though a little higher thanks to Ami's help with some of the subjects." Makoto said.  
  
Usagi snatched five cookies off the plate. "Ami, how did you do? Still first?"  
  
"Yes." Ami said simply, blushing slightly.  
  
"So what did we have planned for today besides complaining about our grades." Rei asked as she glared at Usagi eating three cookies at once.  
  
"I was thinking of going to mall after while since we have the day off from school." Usagi said.  
  
"Naw, as much fun as that would be I don't have any money to spend." Minako said. "How about something else?"  
  
"Like what?" Usagi said. She'd been eyeing this stuffed bunny at one of the shops for some time now.  
  
"We could help Ranma find a new place to live." Ami said and blushed a little.  
  
"Move?" Minako asked.  
  
Usagi nodded. "He's been at that park living in that tent for a few weeks now. So he's looking for some place else to stay."  
  
"Did he say if he had any place in mind?" Rei asked.   
  
"No, he just packed everything up this morning and left the area. By the time I got to the park he was already gone. I didn't get a chance to see him off."   
  
"Oh really?" Minako said with a grin as he eyes sparkled. "You two have been getting quite close lately."  
  
"He's been teaching me some martial arts."  
  
"I still need to get over there and practice with you two." Makoto said.  
  
"Where have you been anyway? He asked about your the other day." Usagi asked.  
  
Makoto sighed. "I've been busy. The one day I stopped by you two were busy."   
  
"What? I don't remember you stopping by."   
  
"I never got close enough for you two to see me. The two of you looked like you were having fun and I didn't want to interrupt." Makoto explained. She had caught Ranma sitting on top of Usagi tickling her. That didn't look like any kind of practice she'd ever seen.  
  
"Well you should have said something. Training with Ranma can be so much fun!"  
  
Rei rolled her eyes.  
  
"What does he do?" Ami asked, leaning forward a little. Minako and Makoto quickly followed suit.  
  
Usagi giggled. "He shows me a form, then has me repeat it several times then makes me use the technique while he attacks."  
  
"He hits you?!" Rei yelled.  
  
"No! He breaks through my defenses and tickles me." Usagi said with a giggle.  
  
"He...tickles you?" Makoto muttered. "Are you sure he's not making advances at you?"  
  
"Nope! When he really wants to prove a point he tossed me in the water."   
  
Ami and Minako's arms slipped and they crashed into the table as they both thought of Usagi in her normal workout uniform, soaked, with certain bits showing through and Ranma off to the side ogling her. Ami started to blush a deep red and looked away as Minako yelled and grabbed her head. "He's trying to get into your pants!"  
  
"That pervert!" Makoto said a few seconds later.  
  
"I have to agree for once." Rei said with a nod as she scowled.  
  
"Humph!" Usagi said as she folded her arms. "I didn't want him to hit me, so I asked him to train me a different way and he came up with the tickling. That is bad enough that it forces me to improve. He said so himself."  
  
"How can you learn to fight if you don't learn how to take a hit once in a while?" Makoto asked. "It's part of the training."  
  
"I know, that's why he's been teaching me only defensive stuff that will increase my speed and balance. Any way the one time he did get a look at me he was in his girl form and had her eyes squeezed shut so tight that I wondered if she would ever be able to open them again." Usagi explained.  
  
"HE DID SEE YOU?!" Rei yelled. "I'LL KILL HIM!"  
  
Minako, Ami, and Makoto all nodded angrily, though the blue haired Scout looked a bit confused.  
  
"Now calm down, nothing happened and it was a misunderstanding!" Usagi said hastily. Why was everyone acting so strangely about this all of a sudden.  
  
Standing, Minako pulled out her Pen. "I say we find him and beat some sense into him. I have to kick his ass anyway, this will just speed things up and teach him a lesson."  
  
"I was going to forgive him too." Makoto said as she pulled hers out.  
  
"There's not need to go quite that far!" Ami said as quickly as she could. "We just need to talk to him, that's all."  
  
"Yes, we need to 'talk' to him alright." Rei said a she too stood up.  
  
Scowling, a look that Usagi didn't wear very often, she slammed her hand down on the table startling the others. "SIT! DOWN! NOW!"  
  
They all sat down as if their strings had been cut and tried not to look into Usagi's angry eyes. "Now all of you listen. Ranma had never taken advantage of me and he has had plenty of chances to try. He is frightened of doing or saying anything that might hurt a girl. All of you should know him a bit better than this by now. Minako you have been treating him horribly since you accidentally fired off that weird Love Beam of yours the other day and affected all of us with it!"  
  
Seething, Usagi glared at them. "This ends now or I will take steps! I don't know what I'll do, but I'll do something to make all of you stop treating him so badly! He is not Mamoru, he isn't even looking for a girlfriend right now. He is just trying to your friend and you three are making that impossible!" She yelled pointing at Minako, Makoto, and Rei.   
  
"Yes Princess." They all muttered, refusing to look her in the eye.  
  
"Makoto?"  
  
"Yes Princess?" The tall Scout asked, a little worried.  
  
"I would like more cookies." Usagi said, looking sadly at the empty plate in front of her.  
  
With the tension suddenly broken Makoto giggled and nodded a few times as she jumped up to get more cookies. Usagi turned back to Ami. "Ami, you have given Ranma more of a chance, but even you haven't treated all that well."  
  
"I know, I kept comparing him to Mamoru."  
  
"So did I at first, but he's been nothing but a friend to all of us and look how he's been treated since he arrived. He had no permanent place to stay, sleeping in that tent night after night as if it was enough. Then what the Youma did at the school to make everyone turn against him, that was horrible." Usagi said.  
  
Minako winced, though a part of her still rebelled against giving him a chance.  
  
"I offered him a chance to stay here." Rei pointed out. "He refused."  
  
Usagi nodded. "I know. Still there had to be something we can do."  
  
The door opened and Makoto stepped into the room again and sat a new plate of cookies right in front of Usagi. "Here you go."  
  
"Thanks Mako-chan!"  
  
She blushed a little. "You're welcome."  
  
"So any ideas?" Usagi said as she started nibbling at a cookie.  
  
"Well we need to fine him first." Rei pointed out and Usagi agreed.  
  
"What do we do when we do find him though?" Minako asked.  
  
"Usagi, don't you have that bond with him? The one you were telling us about the other day?"  
  
The blond nodded. "Yeah, but I have to really focus on it to feeling anything from him."  
  
"Well why don't you use that to track him down? Like Tuxedo Mask used to do when you were in trouble." Rei said.  
  
"I hadn't thought of that!" Usagi said happily. She had gotten used to having a bond sitting in the back of her mind and over time learned to ignore it. Closing her eyes she reached out through the bond to try and find Ranma. She didn't notice as her crescent moon formed on her forehead or as the others all gasped and Ami quickly pulled out her computer and started scanning her.  
  
Nothing happened at first, but then Usagi got a flash of a tree moving by at a high rate of speed and a sense of danger. "He's in danger I think! Running through the trees really, really fast!"  
  
"Are you sure?" Ami asked. "I'm not detecting anything dangerous with the Mercury computer."  
  
Usagi slowly nodded, as if she was in a trance like state. "I'm getting flashes of something, images, through the link. It's normally just emotions."  
  
"Like what?" Ami asked quickly, typing so fast that her fingers couldn't be seen.  
  
"Trees, running, fire, a flying woman!" Usagi gasped and jumped to her feet. "We have to help him!"  
  
"I'm not detecting anything within the city." Ami said half a second later.   
  
"If you are seeing trees I'd bet he's outside the city." Makoto said.  
  
"One second, let me increase the range a bit." Ami said. "Found him!"  
  
"WHERE?!" Usagi yelled.  
  
"Here." Ami said as she pulled up a map of the area and pointed out the Masaki Shrine.   
  
"What's he doing at that run down Shrine for?" Rei asked.  
  
"You know it?" Makoto said as they all stood up.  
  
"Yeah, I've been there a couple of times with my Grandfather. The old priest is a master swordsman that tends the lands with his family and some friends."  
  
"Lets all transform and teleport there at once. Ranma is in trouble, I can feel his fear and excitement right now."  
  
"Excitement?" Ami wondered out loud.  
  
Usagi shrugged. "He likes to fight and gets excited when things turn dangerous."  
  
"Typical man." Minako said with a grin. "Lets get transformed and go help him out."  
  
They all nodded and called out their transformation phrases.   
  
**********  
  
As he runs Ranma he's reminded of what happened between them the last time they met and of course all the energy blasts she was firing at him. He dodged to the side, flipped in mid air, and bounced off a tree as the one he had been on exploded into a large fire ball full of tooth pick sized shrapnel. At the same time he caught glimpse of the girl high in the air above him firing into the forest all around him. He was pretty sure she didn't know his exact location, but that last blast had been to close for comfort. He could see the smoke wafting off his shirt from where his back had been singed by the outer edge of the blast. This situation kind of reminded him of the fight with Saffron and grinned in excitement, that had been the best fight of his life and this girl was pulling off similar attacks. This time he was more prepared for someone that could toss around fire balls strong enough to blow large holes in the ground without being forced to protect someone at the same time.  
  
"I got you now." He whispered as he cupped his hands and formed a ball of energy. High above Ryoko's glowing eyes turned and looked right at Ranma and he cursed as she sent a dozen beams of energy flying right at his   
  
hiding place. Even before he could fire off a Möko Takabisha. He dodged to the left and managed to make it around the first few blasts and was forced to wade through the rest as the area around him was blasted out of existance. He took what little cover he could behind a large tree and waited several seconds before he stood up and ran into the smoke and fire that had filled the area all around him. Saffron hadn't been that accurate and his arrogance had left holes in his defenses, this girl's level seemed to be a bit higher than his had been during the fight. She was turning out to be more than he expected. He kept to the smokey areas as he moved through the trees to find a better place to attack her.  
  
"Come out pervert! You can't run like a coward forever, I'll find you eventually and when I do, you are going to die!" Ryoko yelled out as she tried to see through the smokey cloud that had formed below her.  
  
Let's see what she can really do, Ranma thought to himself as he moved into the open and waved his hands in the air to catch her attention. "Lets get the show on the road! Or are you going to flutter around up there like a retarded butterfly?!"   
  
Growling, Ryoko's head snaps around to give him the 'glare of death' and she instantly fires a beam of energy at him. She watches as Ranma simply flips out of the way and the ground where he was vanishes as her energy beam blows it to hell. She holds out her hand as she glares down on the pervert below her and several dozen balls of glowing energy form around her. Then it streams into her open hand to form a ball of energy that she grabs hold of to form her energy sword. He seems to just be standing there waiting for her to do something else and it irritates her more than a little. Dropping to the ground she lands and with a scream of rage flies at him with her sword raised to strike.  
  
"Oh come on! You can do better than that!" Ranma mocks as she comes flying at him. Then at the last second he simply hops up into the air and flips over her with little trouble. Tapping her back a few times to show her that she was wide open to his attack.  
  
Ryoko rises into the air and comes to a halt hovering about ten feet in the air above Ranma. She'd expected a frontal attack or a dodge to either side at the last second. Even the possibility that he might try to roll underneath her just to catch her off guard. Jumping above her like that had been at the very bottom of the list. She glared at him again and felt her irritation rise just a little higher. "I'll get you, smart ass."   
  
"Hah! You don't stand a chance!" Ranma yelled. "Bring it on!"  
  
She vanished from sight and reappeared right behind him and swung her energy blade at his head. He dodged it with ease and in the blink of an eye she took a kick to the head as he counter attacked with an arrogant grin plastered to his face. This sent her stumbling a couple of paces back before she could recover enough to growl at him. "Why you!"  
  
"That sword just makes you weak and over confident." Ranma sneered. "If this all you got to offer you can just give up so I can go home and get some sleep."  
  
Now she was seeing red and her sword vanished as she formed the energy into a ball and fired it at him. "Aghaaa!"  
  
"Pathetic!" He called as he formed a ball of energy in hands and fired it at her half a second later. "Möko Takabisha!!"  
  
Her hand slashed out and the ball of Ki slammed into her force field, flared for a second and vanished with a puff of smoke. "I think I should be calling that the most pathetic move I've ever seen. Hmm? Even Ayeka fires off hits stronger than that." She said with an evil grin, while a part of her mind tried to remember if she had ever seen him use that kind of blast before. The energy had felt familiar though, as if she had encountered it before. It was a good thing she was used to dealing with people that could throw blast like that around or she would have been taken by surprise.  
  
Ranma blinked in shock as he saw her throw a shield to block his blast. If he remembered right she hadn't used that the last time they fought. Over the last few weeks his Ki had become quite a bit stronger and she was able to fend it off without doing anything? "..." Was all he said as he circled around to her left.  
  
"All out of insults now, pervert?" Ryoko taunted as she formed another ball of energy. "Your hand to hand skills are pretty good if what I saw the a couple weeks back was any indication. Yet here you are completely at my mercy and even your best shot won't work. OHOHOHOHOH What should I do with you?"  
  
Growling, Ranma realized that he would have to take her down with the Hiryü Shöten Ha again. He figured it was about the only technique he had that might be able to stop her without killing her, though she had experianced it before. He would have to hope that she didn't remember it much from the last time he was here. It was also one of the few moves he hadn't had a chance to work with much because of the situation in Nerima. As if he could just walk across the street and start practicing the move and improve on it. Unlike the Möko Takabisha, which he practiced every few days during the constant battles with his rivals. With a twitch of his foot Ranma started running at her as he embraced the soul of ice. Pulling her into the spiral once again would be quite hard, but her over confidence just might allow him to pull it off.   
  
Ryoko just laughed at the blank look on his face as he ran at her and decided to see just how good he was at hand to hand since he depended on it so much. It had been a long time since she took on a trained fighter and even Yosho had been more of a swordsman than a hand to hand fighter. Laughing at the futility of a human taking her on like this she met his attack with a block and kick that he barely dodged. "Even in hand to hand you can't beat me, pervert."  
  
"We'll see about that. Ranma Saotome doesn't lose!" He yelled.  
  
"BWHAHAHAHA! Then you lose today!" Ryoko said as she doubled the speed of her attack and just grinned as he was barely able to keep up. Dodging frantically and taking a glancing hit ever now and then as they fought.  
  
Ranma could feel the techniques taking effect even as he moved past the halfway point of the spiral dodging and blocking for all he was worth and maintaining the Soul of Ice technique. He concentrated on the move and carefully watched as Ryoko followed him through the spiral. Just another few steps and he would have her and the battle would be over. With a final stomp of his foot he threw the spinning upper cut that set off the techniques and screamed the name. "Hiryü Shöten Ha!!"  
  
Pulling her head back in alarm Ryoko barely dodged the totally unexpected attack after he spent so much time dodging all over the place. Hell they'd been moving in circles. Then she felt something odd as a wave of air swirled around them and she was pulled into the air. "WHAT THE F&#$!! Not this time!"   
  
Lowering his arm, Ranma looked up at the rising form of Ryoko and knew something was wrong almost instantly. "Damn!" He muttered as the tornado of air swirled around him. "She wasn't putting out enough hot Ki to create the full thing!"  
  
Using her flight abilities Ryoko flew through the inside of the tornado and shot out the top, formed a ball of energy, and shot it down the center. There was no way she would fall for this attack twice. Her eyes connected with Ranma's the instant she fired the energy blast and she saw something she had been looking for since the fight started. Fear. She was a bit shocked to see her energy blast rip itself apart about half way through the tornado a few seconds later though. Then things really changed for the worse as the tornado suddenly grew in size and power.   
  
Down below Ranma turned to run as she fired the blast, but he knew it was already to late as the color of the tornado turned an angry red and pulled him off the ground along with everything in it's path. Trees, rocks, and hundreds of other things were suddenly flying at him from every directions and for an instant he was reminded of that time Cologne used this on him and how he was been unconscious by the time he landed. If that happened this time he would lose this fight and there was distinct possibility that Ryoko would probably just kill him. He concentrated on a technique he didn't use very often, it was to easy to become dependent on this particular ability. Just like it was to easy to depend on weapons, but this was a situation that might just prove beneficial enough to save his life. As it took effect the world around him seemed to slow down to a crawl as he expanded all his senses to be aware of everything around him.   
  
His mind traced the patterns of all the objects flying at him in an instant and he was ready for them as they got close enough for him to react. A foot lashed out and pushed him off an uprooted tree and sent him higher into the tornado. He had to take a few precious seconds to bat a number of items out of his way as he used the Saotome Anything Goes areial moves to gain a bit of height to stay out of the way of the rest of the junk around him. At the same time he used to soul of ice to make sure he wasn't adding his own energy to the tornado and could feel that it's sudden power surge was about to run out. All he had to do was ride it out for another few seconds. Even though he was spinning around like a top within the tornado he had a pretty good idea where Ryoko was too and the sent a large chunk of a shattered tree flying out of the tornado with a quick kick to a passing debrie. He frowned as it bounced off her shield, but it was enough to distract her as the tornado finally disapated.   
  
For a second he found himself about a hundred feet in the air but he wasn't able to get a good look at the area around him before he started to fall. A wave of dizzyness hit him a few seconds later as his body tried to compensate for all the spinning he'd just experianced. Somewhere in his mind he knew that Ryoko was about fifty feet away watching as he fell. After that he had just a few seconds to fall before he landed and instinctivly used a lot of his Ki to absorb most of the impact in his legs and back. Then ended up tumbling several yards before sliding to a stop and another wave of dizzyness hit him. Every inch of his body hurt like hell as he lay there, his eyes spinning, as he tried to shake off the effect of the tornado. He was conscious at least, that was a good thing, now he just had to find a way to move before she continued the attack. Then he blinked as she appeared right on top of him with a teleport, hovering several inches above his chest as she smiled down at him.  
  
"I win. BWHAHAHAHA!"  
  
"I haven't lost yet." Ranma growled as he struggled, but the world was still spinning around to much for him to think straight.  
  
"You can't even stand up." Ryoko pointed out as she flicked his nose and laughed some more.  
  
Ranma blinked.  
  
"Pervert, your punishment has just begun and you are at my mercy now." She pointed out as she traced a finger down his chest and grabbed a hand full of his shirt and lifted him up off the ground. "I think I'll give you to Washuu, she's been talking about you quite a bit since you left last time."  
  
He paled. "Um...heheh, can we talk about this?"  
  
"Nope." Ryoko snapped with a grin and a glint in her eye.  
  
"I think I'll do something else." Ranma said and brought his legs up and kicked her in the face, again. He managed to catch her by surprise and she let go and stumbled back a few feet and glared at him again as he kneeled on the ground and smirked at her.   
  
"You couldn't move." She snarled.  
  
"True, but you picked me up and that forced my body to move around and it gave me just enough time to recover from all that spinning." Ranma said as he stood up and stretched at little.  
  
"You little cockroach! I'm going to stomp on you so hard that your head comes out your @$$Hole!" Ryoko screamed as she rose into the air crackling with power.  
  
"Was it something I said." Ranma said as he watched her rise. That was a trick he had to learn, the advantages to unassisted flight were always shocking him. Herb had been able to float in the air and fly to a certain extent, but this was so far beyond that. Her hands lashed out and she sent a half dozen energy blasts flying at him. He forced his body to run and dodge as he tried to think of a way to stop her. The Hiryü Shöten Ha hadn't worked at all and placed him in more danger than it did her. Then an idea came to him and he had to wonder if he could pull it off without transforming. He knew his abilities, but this one was pushing things a little as far at the moment, as if he actually had a choice in the matter. There was a slight possibility that it might actually work in this situation and wondered if it Ryoko would fall for something so simple. Glancing up in the sky behind him as she fired blast after blast of energy he figured she would have to get a bit lower before he pulled it off. As she was just a bit out of reach at the moment. He figured that she was just as vulnerable as Herb would have been to this particular attack, but it was untested; as if that had ever stopped him before.   
  
All he needed to do was adapt the attack a little and it would be perfect. She wouldn't know what hit her when he pulled it off. Smiling to himself he runs into the trees where she can't see him anymore and glance behind him just as he crouches down and uses the Umisenken to vanish from sight. He takes a second to notice that she seems to be a bit confused and wonderes if she can sense the Umi as she can when he charges up a Ki attack. Then he shrugs it off and decides that has to take a chance. He was starting to have fun anyway. So he starts to run as fast as he can towards a tree right below where Ryoko is hovering in the air looking in the wrong direction. He bounds forward and races invisibly up the side of the tree, dodging around various branches, and launches himself off one of the upper branches. Straight into the air below her.   
  
Holding the Umisenken in that position is nearly impossible so he lets it go and grins as her head snaps down to see him rise into the air. By the time she thinks to fire a blast at him the attack is already in process. He spins in the air just as he reaches chest level and kicks her in the back of the head with the heel of his foot. The blow causes her to lose her consentration and she instantly starts to plumet at the ground. Then just as he is about to fall he reaches out and grabs the loose clothing on the back of her outfit and with a yank spins them around in mid air so that they are face to face. "I'm the greatest fighter that has ever lived!"   
  
Ryoko just groans and opens her eyes a tiny bit. "You think this will allow you to win?"  
  
Ranma smirked down at her. "You are all power and no skill. Like a bull in a china shop, I can beat anyone that fights that way."  
  
His arm snapped out and caught the top part of a nearby tree as he gave Ryoko a little push to throw her fall off balance a little. Just enough to make sure she can't gain control of her fall for a few seconds. Unfortunately he wasn't expecting her to do what she did, to teleport when she was just a few feet from the ground. Then catch him completely by surprise as she appeared right above him, back first and still in free fall. Only to spin around and slam him across the face with both hands clamped together. He yells out as he is knocked from the tree and falls to the ground below with a loud grunt as he lands on his back and all the air explodes from his lungs. For a brief second all he can see are stars as he gasps for air. As they clear and he starts to see again a frightening vision fills his eyes and he wonders if he might have underestimated the girl just a little. Ryoko is floating about twenty feet above him gathering a large amount of energy between her hands.  
  
"Oh shit." Ranma mutters as he starts to slowly sit up and get out of the way, but Ryoko fires an instant later.  
  
The beam is one of the strongest she has ever fired here at the shrine and she instantly realizes that she might have just made a mistake. Then shrugs it off as something inside her ceases to care, so long as she takes him out once and for all. Even then she stops feeding the beam energy it hits the ground and Ranma has only a second to roll out of the way and use the last of his strength to jump. Only to be caught up in the explosive sphere of energy that expands out wards from the center of the blast around where he had been laying. He curses as he feels his clothing incinerated off his body. Then suddenly enveloped within the outer section of the growing energy ball even as it explodes. Also caught up in the explosion is a lone forgotten cat with a golden wotans cross on it's forehead. His thoughts as the explosion go off are along different lines.  
  
"FUCKING ALIENS!"  
  
**********  
  
Half a mile away there is a multi colored glow appeared in the air in front of the house and the Sailor Scouts appear in a burst of light. They are just in time to be caught up in the shock wave of Ryoko's blast as it shatters all the windows in the house and sets off a mini-earthquake that throw Sailor Moon and Mercury off their feet the instant they all stop holding hands from the teleport jump. Mars, Jupiter, and Venus all manage to stay on their feet by holding onto each other for the ten seconds the quake lasts. Moon and Mercury help each other up a few seconds later and look at the rising cloud of smoke above the forest behind the house in shock. They had expected trouble but nothing that could have pulled something like this off without them knowing about it.  
  
"What the heck caused something like that?" Jupiter asked in shock.  
  
"A very big explosion I would think." Mars said sarcastically. "What the hell are we going to do about it."  
  
Mercury is about to pull out her computer to get a better idea of what's going on when an old man carrying a boken steps out of the house and glances at them. Then he glances at the explosion and frowns a little, his grip tightens on the boken hard enough to make the wood creak in his grip. A boy and three girls all exit the house a few seconds later to see the aftermath of the explosion and several strangers standing in front of their home. The red head seems to make a gesture in the air in front of her and Mercury gets her first look at Washuu's holographic computer as it flares to life.   
  
The old man looks at Venus and seems to calm down. "Sailor Venus? It's good to see the Sailor Scouts are in action again."  
  
Mina gives him a surprised look and glances over at Sailor Moon. "Um..."  
  
"Sailor Venus has traditionally been in command of the Sailor Scouts when ever they have been sent into combat. Has this changed?" Katsuhito asked as he recalled some of the history he'd been taught when he was younger. The Moon Kingdom had always been a very interesting area of study at the college he attended on Jurai.  
  
"It's a different world now." Washuu said as she typed away on her computer, compiling information. She ignored Sailor Mercury who was standing right behind her watching and recording the process in fascination. "Things have changed. Moon is the leader for this current team."  
  
"What's going on?" Sailor Moon asked even as she acknowledged what Washuu was saying.  
  
"We're not sure actually." Katsuhito said as he turned to address Moon. "Ryoko was supposed to have a simple fight with our latest guest. I have no idea why it has escalated to this. I hope the young man isn't dead though, he still owes us a bit of an explanation."  
  
"That is a hell of an explosion." Jupiter said from her place beside Venus.   
  
"Where's Ranma?" Mars growled. "That is why we came here in the first place."   
  
"Ranma was the one fighting with Ryoko, the girl that did that." Katsuhito said and gestured to the cloud of destruction.  
  
"We still need to figure out why he even came out here in the first place." Mars said, then she turned as the alarm on Mercury's computer went off. "What's going on Mercury?"  
  
Ami taped a few keys on her computer and ignored the intense look that Washuu gave her when she noticed the mini-computer. "The Mercury Computer is picking up that same energy type that was used on Nabiki Tendo and Ryoga Hibiki at the mall."  
  
"Energy?" Washuu asked herself and turned back to the holographic computer, typing quickly.  
  
"Where is it?" Moon asked, though she was pretty sure she already knew the answer.  
  
"Inside that dust cloud. Whatever it is I'm detecting three different forms of energy out there. Ranma's energy, though it's very low, what might be Silver Millennium energy, and that dark energy in huge amounts."  
  
"We need to get out there and stop it before anything happens!" Sailor Moon said with a hint of panic. "Ranma is in there with that stuff."  
  
"I'd advise against that." Washuu said as she read the readings on her own computer. "What ever is in there seems to have set something in motion and if it's stopped before it's finished it just might kill whatever it's trying to affect."  
  
"Agreed." Said Mercury. "Whatever that dark energy is doing, it's in a highly dangerous state right now and if we block it bad things could happen. I'd almost say it was conscious of it's own actions if these readings weren't so random."  
  
"So we just have to stand here and let it finish attacking one of our friends?" Moon asked.  
  
"No you don't. It's attacking my daughter Ryoko." Washuu said.  
  
The Scouts turned and gave the twelve year old looking Washuu unbelieving looks.   
  
"It's true." Washuu said, looking as cute as she could.   
  
"Who are you anyway?" Venus asked as she moved over beside Moon and glared down at Washuu.   
  
"Oh? I thought you knew. I'm Washuu! The Greatest Scientific Genius in the Universe!" Washuu said with her arms in the air.  
  
Sailor Moon shrugged and turned to the other Scouts. Washuu looked like she was about to start pouting, then shrugged it off as Moon started to talk. "What do we do?"  
  
Katsuhito, as well as the others decided that he'd let this go on long enough and stepped forward. "Washuu, I'd like to know how Ryoko managed to create this blast. She does not have the energy available to do this kind of thing anymore. I made sure of that when I programmed the Master Key to only give her one of her Gems back."   
  
"Programmed? I thought Tenchi made that decision?"   
  
"He thinks he did." He said back in a flat tone that made Tenchi look at him. "Well?"  
  
"I'm not sure actually. Her readings during battle were pretty much normal. With no readings that would suggest this level of power. It was only while she was fighting the boy, the one they are calling Ranma, that her energy readings started to skyrocket."  
  
"There is no way her anger could have affected the one gem she does have?"  
  
"No." Washuu said. "Do you think I would design something like her gems with such a shoddy design flaw?"  
  
"Then what could it be?"  
  
Mercury raised her hand and caught their attention. "The last time we saw this kind of energy it had taken a perfectly normal girl and given her a lot of power. Enough to empower two other girls with powers as well and the three of them blew up a good portion of a mall. The other one was a guy and he nearly killed all of us in a hand to hand fight in the middle of that same mall."   
  
"So this energy is possessing people?" Washuu asked as she turned back to her holographic computer.  
  
Mercury nodded. "Yes, we just don't know how it does so."  
  
"Let's just go kick her butt then, if this Ryoko really is possessed by this energy then we can kick her ass too. We have fought much tougher enemies than this after all." Jupiter said.   
  
Sailor Moon sighed and glared at her friend. 'Why did they always want to resort to violence first?' She wondered to herself.  
  
"Washuu said that the energy was staying away from Ranma, Jupiter. So he is probably safe enough, but that other one, if she can fire off blasts like this we need to stop her quickly." Said Sailor Mars.  
  
The red headed scientist laughed, startling all of them as she looked over at Jupiter. "All of us, including Katsuhito, Tenchi, and Ayeka here are going to be needed to stop Ryoko. If this energy is doing what I think it's doing, then we may have to fight the Space Pirate Ryoko, a persona of Ryoko that has lain dormant for a very long time."  
  
"She can't be that strong?!" Jupiter said. "Is she?"  
  
Katsuhito's eyes flashed in anger as he turned to gaze at the destruction around him and he realized that it was beginning to really reminded him of the first time the two of them fought over seven hundred years before. Back when he was known as Lord Yosho and had been hunting Ryoko across the galaxy to make her pay for her crimes. "I hope you are wrong Washuu, for if she turns back into that monster we may have no alternative but to kill her."   
  
"NO!" Sailor Moon snapped, startling them all. "No killing while I'm around. She was stopped once if I understand what all of you are saying, so it can be done again. Love will win out above cruelty every time."  
  
"What about that other energy source? The Silver Millennium one that you mentioned Mercury." Sailor Venus asked.  
  
"It was a small amount of Silver Millennium energy. At first I thought it was Ranma, but it's a couple hundred feet from him at the moment. Right on top of another source of that dark energy."  
  
"Two possessions?!" Mars snapped. "Wherever these things are coming from we have to stop them or else this will just continue."   
  
"Agreed." Katsuhito said. "Washuu, we need a plan of attack, any ideas how to deal with this before things get to out of hand? Ryoko is your daughter after all."  
  
"Alright, I'm pretty sure that our main problem is going to be Ryoko, my computer is reading things from her that I've never seen before and if they don't stop she could end up leveling most of this mountain and taking us with her. She has to be contained, so I think it would be best if we tricked her. We can worry about that other possession later, whoever it is can't be as strong as Ryoko in a berserk 'kill everything in sight' mode."  
  
"I agree, but we can't just ignore the other threat either. Plus we have to get to Ranma as well." Sailor Moon said with a glance at Mercury.  
  
Washuu sensed an opening and asked a quick question. "What is Ranma? Male or Female?  
  
"Ranma is a guy, unless he gets splashed with cold water. When that happens his curse activates and he turns female. Hot water turns her back into a guy. He prefers his male form though and goes to some pretty extravagant lengths to make sure people don't find out about it." Mercury explained.  
  
Ayeka suddenly recalled the bath incident and started to growl as she realized what must have set Ryoko off. "Why that little..."   
  
"Not now Ayeka!" Katsuhito snapped, his voice taking a tone of command that it rarely achieved. "We can deal with Ranma's little accident when this rather larger problem is dealt with. Understand?"   
  
"Of course." Ayeka said politely. "There will be a reckoning though."  
  
Sailor Moon sighed again and tried to figure out what Ranma had done now. "Let's get to work then. We need to send someone out to get Ranma."  
  
"I'll go get him." Tenchi said as he moved to go look for Ranma, but Ayeka stopped him..   
  
"No Tenchi, you need to stay here and help fight Monster Woman." Ayeka said. "You are stronger than me any way. I'll go get him and bring him back here."  
  
"I can help." Sasami said.  
  
"Sasami, we need you to prepare some bandages, that way we can be ready for any injuries that might happen during the battle." Katsuhito said.  
  
"Sure!" Sasami nodded and rushed into the house to find the first aid kit and get everything set up.   
  
"At least this time we have a little while to prepare before all hell breaks loose." Tenchi muttered to himself as he watched Ayeka get directions from Washuu and head off towards the forest.   
  
**********  
  
Creeping through the bushes had seemed like such a good idea, Sol thought as she struggled against a mud like substance that had burst from her own shadow a few minutes before. As far as she was concerned, a small cat body, some thick underbrush, trees in every direction one could see, and it would mean the perfect cover to follow someone. The boy had set off her magic senses the instant she spotted him in the park the night before and she had been watching him ever since. She hadn't expected to have to follow him all the way out of the city, but he was interesting so it hadn't been that big of a deal. From the point when he entered the house until after he came back out she had been dosing to get some of her energy back from the long chase. During the trip she had quickly learned how to read his energy signature and it had helped her keep him sight whenever he would suddenly put on a burst of speed. Even when he seemed to get lost and doubled back on himself.  
  
After he left the house though she had watched from the cover of the bushes as he covered over fifty yards in a matter of seconds with some insane Youma chasing after him. She had witnessed the whole fight, her jaw hanging open in shock as he performed things that only the Scouts were supposed to be able to do. Move at super speed, enhanced reflexes, even manipulate energy with his own body and use it as a weapon. The Youma was a given, they always attacked their targets with a tenacity that was quite unusual. Then the boy, she still hadn't learned his name, performed his last attack. Literally running up the side of a tree and launching himself high into the air to attack the Youma head on. At first it had seemed to work too and she had cheered the boy on silently as they plummeted towards the ground.  
  
Then the tables had been turned when the Youma simply teleported back into the air just a few feet from the ground and caught the boy off guard. Even she hadn't expected that to happen. Then the Youma sent the boy plowing into the ground with a physical blow and charged up that mega powered blast of energy. So much that she had felt her fur stand on end just from being to close to it as she fired it. The explosion had spread out across the ground for about fifty feet in every direction before it even exploded, setting trees on fire and picking her up like a doll. It was only because of her magical protections that she wasn't killed, yet the blast had been enough to toss her around from tree to tree until it knocked her out a few seconds later. After that she figured she would be in pain for a few days as she healed from her injuries, but that didn't look like it was going to happen. Instead she had opened her eyes when she felt something odd happening and found herself laying in small pool of brownish black goo that was bubbling all around her, from within her own shadow.  
  
Smoke and fire filled the air around her as she struggled against the gooey substance that wouldn't let her go. The more she struggled the worse her situation seemed. At first it had only grabbed onto a bit of her, but as she moved around it crept up her body and left a feeling of numbness in it's wake as it slowly absorbed her. Frightened out of her mind she screamed for help, uncaring if a human happened to here her, she needed help as soon as possible. She reached deep within her and tried to use her magic and an instant later she realized that was a major mistake as the substance seemed to quiver just as it rose up and engulfed her completely. Her screams went unheard above the fire around her, but a few seconds later the mass of goo started to bubble again and a large cat like shape rose from its depths and started to grow in size and a set of blood red eyes opened up and glared around the area.   
  
It was time to hunt for it's prey and nothing on the planet would stop it now that it had the power. Opening it's maw to reveal gleaming white teeth it roared it's intentions to the world as loud as it could. Just a little ways away a second entity rose up from where it too had been submerged in a thick goo and calmly stepped out onto the dry ground to reveal it's female body glistening in the fire that raged all around her and she grinned. A grin that Ryoko hadn't used in centuries as she felt power flowing through her body at a level she could barely ever recall ever feeling before. She rose up into the air as more of the goo dripped off her body and revealed that she was wearing her black and red battle armor, three glowing dots about her body.   
  
The first was at her neck while the other two were set into the insides of her wrists. Just looking at them made her feel like blowing something up just for old times sake. She hadn't been free to do as she pleased in a very long time and there was no way that the old fossil would have the ability to stop her this time. No way in hell, she was at the peak of her power again while he had allowed himself to wither away into an old shell. She had the power and she was going to put it to a good use. Anything she wanted would be hers, all she had to do was take it. There was only one thing she had to take care of before she did anything else and that was to annihilate the Pervert.  
  
**********  
  
To Be Continued...  
  
End Notes - 


	9. Monster Chapter

Notes – Welcome back to the battle royal! Since it's been a while since I   
  
posted chapter 7 of this it might be a good idea to go back and review the   
  
fight. As this chapter progresses it takes a lot of twists and turns.  
  
**********  
  
The Replacement  
  
Chapter 08  
  
Cory D. Rose  
  
ertle2@msn.com  
  
(c) 2003  
  
**********  
  
"Ayeka just gathered up Azaka and Kamindake and went to get the boy." Katsuhito said to the group.  
  
They nodded; unsure just who the two new people were, but figured the girl knew what she was doing if she took them along. Sailor Moon was beginning to wonder just who these people were now that she had a chance to think things through a little bit. They had arrived here to help Ranma.  
  
Instead, they were being told to wait while one of them went to get Ranma. Sailor Moon would have preferred if it were one of the Scouts though. She didn't really know who these people were. The old man seemed like the leader of the group, but she could tell that most of them wanted to go out and fight this Ryoko person.  
  
That thought made her wonder just how Ranma was doing out there. Through her link with Ranma, she could tell that he was unconscious, but seemed to be all right other than that. He didn't even seem to be in any pain.  
  
She glanced at the Scouts and saw that Venus and Jupiter were talking to each other while standing off to the side. Mars looked like she was on the verge of yelling at someone as she glared at the ground at everybody, and Mercury was assisting Washuu with another scan of the area.  
  
"Sailor Moon." Venus said quietly as she and Jupiter walked over.  
  
"What's going on?" She asked.  
  
"We need to go and get Ranma ourselves. I don't trust that girl at all and did you see those things she took with her into the forest?" Jupiter told her. "Two large floating logs with their names painted on the sides. They almost reminded me of the Droids from when Rubius was around."  
  
"We should be the ones to go and get Ranma." Venus insisted.  
  
Moon nodded. "I know, but we also need to be here for when this Ryoko starts to cause problems."  
  
"Then let us go and get Ranma, he can help us out by turning into Vulcan. Those large energy blasts of his will come in handy against someone that can fire off a similar level of fire power." Jupiter insisted as she pointed at the burning forest behind them. "Remember what Ranma accidentally did to the school the other day."  
  
"And what about that other problem Mercury told us about? Some other person was possessed too?" Sailor Moon asked.  
  
With a shrug, Jupiter folded her arms and glared out at the burning trees. "What about it, we can handle anything that gets in our way if we have to."  
  
"We need to stick together if we want to be of any help at all. If you aren't here when the fighting really starts we will be in trouble."  
  
"Are you feeling alright?" Venus asked suddenly.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
Venus shook her head and decided that insulting Moon's intelligence would not be a good thing to do right then. Sailor Moon usually didn't think like that and it had her worried. "Nothing just thought of something surprising."  
  
"We need to get out there and help." Jupiter insisted.  
  
Suddenly Sailor Mercury ran over to them. "Sailor Moon, that second dark energy source is on the move and it's heading right for Ranma."  
  
"What?!" Moon yelled. "Are you sure?"  
  
"Yes, it's still a little too hard to read, but Washuu thinks that it would be best to get more people out there to make sure that no one is injured."  
  
"That's all I needed to hear." Sailor Moon said as she turned to Venus and Jupiter. "Go and help him as fast as you can!"  
  
"Right!" They yelled and ran off into the forest in a blur of motion.  
  
"Is there anything else that you two are doing that might help us?" Katsuhito asked. He seemed to appear right behind Sailor Moon.  
  
"Aghaaa!!" She screeched and jumped about a foot in the air. "Don't do that!"  
  
The old man grinned. "I did not mean to scare you." He lied.  
  
"Washuu says that she is attempting to get her sensors back on line so that she can monitor the fighting better. Whatever happened out there knocked them off line and she is attempting to reprogram them to work around the interference. If it works she says we will be able to see what is going out there as well."  
  
"How will she do that without sending a camera out there to see them?" Moon asked.  
  
"Sensors are more powerful than a camera Sailor Moon." Mercury said. "They can do a lot of amazing things."  
  
Washuu nodded.  
  
"Um…okay." Moon said, though she looked a little confused.  
  
**********  
  
Azaka and Kamidake, Princess Ayeka's two large wooden guardians, floated through the trees several yards behind Ayeka as she moved through smoke filled woods. So far she hadn't been able to make much head way though the smoke that seemed to hover throughout the area. "What do you think is going on?" Azaka asked as they moved past some more smoldering bushes and over   
  
turned trees.  
  
"I have no idea, just that the explosion woke me up." Kamindake said.  
  
"Moron, we were on guard duty."  
  
"Right right, we hadn't moved from our posts in three months at least and you're still calling it guard duty?"  
  
"Hey, you were sleeping as much as I was, don't deny it." Kamindake commented smugly.  
  
"Humph! I have no idea what you are talking about."  
  
After several seconds of walking along in silence, Ayeka stopped to look around. The two guardians continued to hover around the area and noticed that most of the trees in this area have been levelled, several of them are even still being consumed by the fire.  
  
Over half of them are barely standing and there seems to be a fine layer of ash and smoke floating just above the ground. Kamindake floated forward and commenced a more thorough scan of the area as Azaka hovered near Ayeka in case something dangerous appeared. He prepped his laser to protect her at all costs. "Is this the place?" He asked.  
  
"Yes it is." Ayeka said as she looked around. "We need to find a boy, about sixteen or so. Black hair and well built."  
  
They looked about the devastated area, the blasted trees, and the rising stench of burnt plants and floating ash as it slowly drifted to the ground to cover everything in a fine layer of gray dust. Kamindake moved over to Ayeka. "Scanners are having problems working in this environment. I'm getting a lot of conflicted readings. It's as if something is blocking my scanners."  
  
"Are you scanning for the boy himself?"  
  
"No, just a human bio signature, they are easier to pick out in an environment like this."  
  
Ayeka nodded slowly and looked about the area a little closer. "This is the area that the blue haired Scout told me that we could find that boy and Washuu confirmed it as well. Where could he be though? Do you detect any holes in the ground that he might be hiding in?"  
  
"It's the ash, it's giving the scanner a lot of feedback." Kamindake said. "I'll need a few minutes to work around the problem."  
  
"Be quick about it."  
  
"Danger Princess." Azaka said suddenly, making Ayeka spin around to look at him as he floated beside her.  
  
"What is it?" She asked, but stepped back as she caught sight of a monster.  
  
Standing several yards away was a very large thing that covered in layers and layers of shadows, so many that it was hard to tell what it was. She could make out just enough to tell that it was covered from head to toe in long grayish fur.  
  
It was squatting on it hind legs as it watched them from between a couple of trees and Ayeka was sure that it was even bigger than it seemed. Its glowing red eyes narrowed as it stood up to its full height and looked down at them. Its shape was hard to make out as well because of all the shadows that covered its body.  
  
Even the flames from the burning trees were not enough to light up its body. Azaka shifted so that it was just in front of Ayeka and Kamindake moved into position just to the side and powered up its laser as well. The crystal jewels set into the wood of their bodies, just above their names, started to glow with energy.  
  
"You have one warning, leave or you will be punished!" Azaka yelled.  
  
"You think you can stop me with those pathetic weapons?" It growled. "I have become more powerful than you can ever imagine and all I have to play with are a pair of scratching posts?"  
  
"Whatever you are, leave this instant and you will not be harmed." Ayeka demanded in her full princess voice.  
  
It snorted and licked its very large, very pointed teeth and seemed to grin at her. "You will learn our true power soon enough, but first you have to deal with my new sister. If you survive then maybe we can fight." It said with a hint of amusement in its voice.  
  
Ayeka realized that the thing was mocking them and saw red as she yelled out. "Azaka! Kamindake! FIRE!"  
  
A barrage of laser fire erupted from each of the guardian's jewel sensors and started slicing the area up, almost instantly turning the nearby trees into piles of shredded wood. By the time they stopped, there was no sign of the creature. Azaka and Kamindake moved away from Ayeka and scanned the area again. "There is no sign of the creature Princess." Azaka reported. "There is no sign of a body either."  
  
"Sensors seem to be working again Princess. I've located our original target for this mission." Kamindake said.  
  
"You found the boy? Excellent! Lets go and get him, we need to get back to the house so we can keep Ryoko from killing him."  
  
They quickly made their way through the burning trees and found a large mound of dirt shoved up against a small cluster of trees. There was a trench cut in the earth leading up to the trees with a completely naked body half buried in the dirt at its base.  
  
Ayeka took one look and blushed as she realized that the boy lying on the ground in front of her had a body that looked like it was molded out of stone. Coughing to hide her growing blush, she pointed at him. "Azaka, Kamindake, lift him out of there carefully with your force fields and bring   
  
him along."  
  
"Vital signs are surprisingly strong. Subject will be awake in a few minutes if we leave him here to recover on his own." Azaka stated as he finished his scan of the boy.  
  
"It would be best to wait, Princess. The thing from before might still be around and if we are busy carrying the boy we can't protect you." Kamindake explained.  
  
Scowling, Ayeka resisted the urge to over ride her guardian's protection program. She did not want to be out here and with Monster Woman running around more powerful than usual; she didn't want to be here any longer than she had to be. That meant that here was only one course of action left to her and she really, really didn't want to do it. "You two keep watch, I'll carry him."  
  
"Yes Princess." The guardians chorused as they moved into protection mode again.  
  
On one hand if she hadn't known who the boy was she might not have had much of a problem touching him. On the other hand, this pervert had seen her naked in the bathroom and barely escaped with his life when Ryoko was firing energy blasts at him. Just looking down on him and ignoring his muscular backside made her want to kick him. "Were there any broken bones?"  
  
"No princess, he's in perfect health, just unconscious, and will wake up in two minutes if brainwave activity remains the same as Lord Tenchi's profile." Kamindake said.  
  
With a little shudder, she reached down, grabbed his arm, and pulled the body over onto its back and she choked down a gasp of shock as she finally got a good look at him. Every square inch. 'Don't think of him as a boy.' She chanted repeatedly in her head as she used her Jurian will power force herself to lift him up onto her back and hold him in place. Ignoring the feel of his naked backside resting on her hand or his muscular arms draped over her shoulders.  
  
"This is disgusting!" She snarled, just to let the guardians know what she was thinking. 'Think of Tenchi-sama, Think of Tenchi-sama, and Think of Tenchi-sama!' She chanted to herself and began to walk back to where Tenchi and the others were waiting.  
  
"Are you alright Princess?" Azaka asked. "Your face is flushed."  
  
"It's n-nothing." Ayeka said. "We need to hurry, this guy is too big...er, heavy for me to carry for long."  
  
"We are just a few minutes away Princess." Kamindake said.  
  
"Thank god." Ayeka muttered. Carrying a naked man on her back was proving to have several distractions that she hadn't considered before. 'He's ruining my robes too.'  
  
The trees opened up before her and they found themselves in a small clearing that looked like the fire hadn't touched it yet. However, there was quite a bit of smoke in the air around them. There was just enough in the air to obscure everything in a hazy mist.  
  
For just a second all was peaceful, then she heard a noise she really didn't want to hear and looked up into the air above them. Just as a bar of blue light fired down from the sky, hit the ground about ten yards away, and exploded. Azaka and Kamindake did what they could to shield the princess from the blast, but they weren't fast enough to stop the blast wave from crashing into them.  
  
This sent her and Ranma flying back several feet where they landed in a hard and fell to the ground. They rolled for several feet before they stopped, but they eventually came to a stop. Ayeka wasn't sure how but Ranma had landed on top of her and she started to blush as she realized what they looked like.  
  
Then Ranma groaned, rolled off her, and sat up clutching his head. Ayeka sighed in relief and hoped that no one had seen that. "What they hell hit me?" He pushed himself up and shook his head to clear the cob webs that had developed.  
  
"Get off me."  
  
He looked down to see that he was sitting on Ayeka's stomach and that he was completely naked. "Yah!!" he screamed, jumped off her, and flipped in mid air to land several feet away. "What the hell do you think you're doing you pervert!"  
  
"You're the one calling me a pervert?!" Ayeka growled. "You jerk!"  
  
"I'm the one that ended up naked in your lap!" Ranma yelled back angrily.  
  
Up above them Ryoko hovered in the air as she gaped like a fish at the sight of a naked Ranma strutting around. 'I knew he really was a pervert.' She thought to herself as she glanced over at the bright red blush on Ayeka's face and grinned evilly.  
  
The princess stood up slowly and took a second to dust herself off as she did what she could to control her blushing. It didn't help that Ranma didn't seem to have any modesty at all, as he stood there naked as the day he was born and didn't even attempt to cover himself up. Not a care in the world.  
  
"How dare you?!"  
  
"Hey you're the one who took my clothes." Ranma snapped. "Give them back and I'll get dressed."  
  
He took a second to look around and remembered that he had been fighting with that girl. A quick look into the air above him was all he needed to see her watching the two of them fight.  
  
"I DID NO SUCH THING!" Ayeka yelled.  
  
"Then why am I naked? Plus you can't seem to take your eyes off me, I can tell when a girl is looking at me. Your eyes have been below the waist line this whole time, that's a pervert in my book."  
  
"HAHAHAHAHA!" Ryoko laughed as she slowly floated down towards the ground in a sitting position. "He's got you there princess."  
  
Ayeka glared up her rival as Ryoko decided to fight them face to face, it would be more fun that way.  
  
"Hey, there you are." Ranma said as he stepped forward. "That last blow was quite powerful, but as you can see I'm still in one piece."  
  
Leering down at Ranma, Ryoko grinned as she made a show of checking the boy out by flying around him a couple of times. "You are still whole, but that won't last for to much longer. Some things have changed while you were unconscious."  
  
"It'll take more than you've got to beat me." Ranma said as he crossed his arms and nodded arrogantly. "Bring it on!"  
  
"HAHAHAHA!" Ryoko laughed as she formed a ball of energy between her hands and fired another beam at him. Just a few feet away from Ranma the beam split in half, one part heading for him and the other one flying right at Ayeka who had this confused look on her face.  
  
Ranma dodged, diving to the left just as he heard some kind of shout and the air was suddenly full of large balls of flying electricity. They flew overhead just as Ranma landed and rolled to his feet and skidded for several feet. Over by where Ayeka he caught sight of a yellow chain made out of hearts retracting from where it had just blocked the second half of Ryoko's   
  
attack. He wasn't sure if it was Jupiter and Venus because of all the smoke in the air, but he was reasonably positive.  
  
"Interfering bitches!" Ryoko screamed from somewhere overhead.  
  
He glanced up at the voice and saw a ball of energy forming between the hands of a shadowy looking Ryoko. If anything, the amount of smoke in the air had almost tripled in the last few seconds. Then he saw a form heading for him through all the smoke. He could tell it was one of the Scouts, but didn't really have a clue which one it was. All he knew was that she was in Ryoko's line of fire and that she was about to take a hit.  
  
A part of him said to keep his head down and that the Scout could take care of herself. While another part of him sat on the idea and said to rescue her before she got hurt because of him. In a blink of an eye he jumped into the air and saw that Ryoko had fired at almost the same time. As   
  
he hurtled through the smoky air he saw that it was Sailor Venus and that she had just realized she was about to be hit.  
  
Gritting his teeth he landed next to her, took her in his arms, and jumped across the clearing just as the area exploded. This sent bits of dirt and grass flying in all directions. Cradling her in his arms he used his body weight to alter his jump and landed several feet from where he should have   
  
landed. It proved to be a very good idea as it too exploded in an even bigger explosion than the first one did. He dropped to the ground and covered Venus to shield her with his body.  
  
She screamed as a third blast hit almost right next to them and sent them rolling several yards before Ranma was able to stop them. Then he picked her up and got behind a tree for a bit of protection. Not much compared to Ryoko's blasts, but enough to keep her from seeing them. Ranma   
  
looked around the edge of the tree and watched as Ryoko hovered a few yards in the air looking for them.  
  
"Are you alright?" He asked the shivering girl in his arms. It was a little hard to tell, but he figured she was all right since he didn't see any blood and she wasn't crying.  
  
"Hu...umin...a." Venus stuttered out and gave him a weird look.  
  
He turned back to look at the Scout and wondered why her skin was all red like that. "Those explosions seem to have given you a first or second degree burn, Venus."  
  
Venus sighed and just looked at him with suddenly sparkly eyes and a weird grin.  
  
"Venus?"  
  
"Ranma?" She said calmly.  
  
"Are you alright?"  
  
"Ran...ma?" She said huskily.  
  
"You are okay, right?" He asked again, this time with a bit more forcefully. He wondered what in the world was wrong with her. None of his other Fiancée's had acted like this when they were hurt. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw that Ryoko was moving across the cleaning, forming a ball of energy between her hands.  
  
Ignoring Venus for a second, he squinted, and was able to barely make out Ayeka and Jupiter as they were moving from between a couple of trees on the other side of the clearing. He nodded as he noticed that they were keeping several trees between them and Ryoko, but it wasn't enough, but she had just spotted them.  
  
Ranma sat Venus on the ground as quickly as he could and was in motion before he even had time to think. He dashed across the clearing, springing from behind the tree, and almost flying across the clearing in the blink of an eye. He didn't even hear Venus yell out for him to come back,   
  
but he did hear Ayeka's voice.  
  
"Azaka, Kamindake, no!"  
  
He didn't notice as his aura formed about him as he ran or that it drew the full attention of all three girls. All he saw was that Jupiter and Ayeka were in trouble and that he had to help before they were hurt. His aura drew Jupiter's attention the quickest, she turned, and saw him running at her glowing like a blue star. Her jaw dropped as she realized he was completely naked and that he was heading right at her.  
  
"Oh My GOD!!"  
  
Ranma grabbed her in his left arm, just as he used his right to grab Ayeka. Who had been struck dumb from the sight of a naked man running right at her. They screamed in unison as Ranma suddenly jumped into the air and cleared several yards before making it back into the trees to the trees around them.  
  
In the air above them, Ryoko dissipated the ball of energy she was holding, and started laughing as she thought about what she had just seen. She had only seen Tenchi naked on a few small occasions so she was a bit startled to see that the princess had frozen up just like always did when   
  
Tenchi was around. It was like a live action game and she was a spectator to the whole thing, she had to see more.  
  
Therefore, she floated higher into the air to see if they were still running through the forest around the clearing. After several seconds of looking around, she decided that they must have stopped and hidden from her direct line of sight.  
  
So she descended to the ground, it was time to play a different game. As she was landing in the middle of the clearing, sparkles of light started to rise from the ground and she collected a few in her hand and formed her energy sword.  
  
She waved her hand forward and the rest of the lights rushed off into the forest in the direction Ranma had taken the girls. "That pervert is going to pay."  
  
Ranma skidded to a halt a little ways away and found himself standing on at the edge of a cliff that over looked the whole valley where the Masaki shrine was located. He could hear Ryoko laughing somewhere behind him and took the opportunity to set the two girls on the ground at his feet.  
  
They were both blushing furiously and looking away from him as he turned around and headed back into the woods around them. "You two stay here. I'll be back in a few minutes and try to stay away from that loony."  
  
"Where are you going Ranma?" Jupiter asked as she tried to fight off the urge not to look at a guy she was still a little mad at. She felt funny, and tried to keep her emotions from showing up in her voice. Ayeka, who was beside, her just nodded and fiddled with the hem of her robe.  
  
"I had to leave Venus back there by a tree when I saved you. I need to get back to her before anything else happens."  
  
"You aren't going like that are you?" Jupiter asked as her eyes started wander down, then jerked her head back up and blushed.  
  
"What do you mean?" Ranma asked, tilting his head to the side.  
  
Now Jupiter looked a bit bewildered. "Um...I mean the way you are dressed." She started blushing even redder than before, but decided not to look away because she liked what she was seeing and was having problems remembering just why she was angry with him in the first place.  
  
"Dressed?" Ranma asked and looked down. "GHAAA!"  
  
The girls giggled as Ranma blushed. "Um...I forgot in all the excitement."  
  
"It couldn't have been all the exciting." Jupiter said with a giggle.  
  
"Oh, ha ha." Ranma snapped, actually understanding what the girl was saying for once.  
  
Standing up, still blushing, Ayeka meekly removed the outer part of her robe and handed it to Ranma. "Here, put this on at least."  
  
"Thanks." Ranma said as he folded it a couple of times and quickly tied it around his waist like a towel. "I'll be back as soon as possible."  
  
The girls nodded as Ranma ran back into the forest, and then Ayeka looked at Sailor Jupiter. "Is he always like that?"  
  
"Not really, although he doesn't seem to have any problems running around liked that does he? I wonder where he got it from, or it just proves that he really is a first class pervert." Jupiter said with a grin. "You should have seen him when he's working out with one of my friends."  
  
"I can imagine. I've never met anyone like him."  
  
"He's certainly a strange one that is for sure. I need to get back there and help him fight that woman, he has no clue what he's fighting against and I don't think he cares either. He's just having fun."  
  
"Ryoko likes to pick fights for fun too, she scares her 'prey' half to death by almost blowing them up, and then pushing them until they collapse. Only then does she move in for the kill. That's what she used to do before she was imprisoned. Now that her old tendencies back because of that evil energy, we may have to run for it. I have no idea how strong she is in this state either. Ryo-Ohki is the one I'm worried about though."  
  
"Ryo-Ohki?" Jupiter asked. "I haven't heard of him before."  
  
"She's Ryoko's pet, sort of, its the best way to describe her. Ryo-Ohki can eat anything and has the ability to turn into her space ship."  
  
Sailor Jupiter gaped at the purple haired girl. "You're kidding right?"  
  
Ayeka shook her head.  
  
"Gods, we have to let the others know."  
  
"That might be a good idea."  
  
Some distance away from the girls, Ranma growled as he glared at the level of destruction around him. He hadn't wanted to say anything to the girls, but he had never expected things to get this bad when he decided to fight this girl. He wasn't quite sure what was going on, but she was too dangerous too just let go, but he really didn't want to hurt her either. Things had gotten so out of control that now he would need to transform into Vulcan just to stop her.  
  
Was a nice friendly sparing match too much to ask for? Lately his life had taken on a surreal quality, he had come here to have some fun, and let off a little steam by fighting what looked like a tough opponent. But the level of power she was using now was impossible to imagine and those   
  
special abilities of her were keeping him on his toes.  
  
She had him out classed, just as Saffron had dwarfed him in sheer power when they had fought. He could admit that at least, it didn't mean he was going to roll over and die though. It just meant he had to take her seriously after all and he couldn't ever recall taking a girl serious in a   
  
fight before, but she had earned that at least. Clenching his fist, he said his transformation phrase and held his hand in the air.  
  
"VULCAN KNIGHT SENSHI, MAKE UP!!"  
  
In an instant he could feel his aura surge with power and expand out in a flash of bright blue light. It appeared to shred the robe he borrowed and expand into a bubble of energy to intense to look at. When it receded half a second later, he wearing a blue version of the outfit Jedite and the others used to wear. A thick cape of blue material with a white inner lining that seemed to shimmer as it rippled in the wind.  
  
Then a blue facemask formed across his face to cover his eyes and cheeks, but leaving his hair wild and free. Finally, a small blue glowing jewel formed on the left breast of his outfit and started pulsing. This created an eerie glow within the smoke filled air for yards in every direction.  
  
Growling, Ranma's aura expanded out and obliterated a couple of nearby trees as he looked around for Ryoko. It was time to finish this fight once and for all. A list of tactics and possible actions started to scroll across his vision as he searched the area with his visor.  
  
It ran its own scans to keep him informed of possible situations and changes in the battle. A few seconds later the scan stopped and a small map appeared and told him where Sailor Jupiter, Ayeka, and Sailor Venus are all located. He was only a little surprised to find that Venus had been moving around after he left her to save the other two girls. So he only had to go a little ways to get to her.  
  
A bigger surprise was that Ryoko wasn't showing up on the scanner. A tiny symbol appeared off to the side of the map, right beside a small icon with information scrolling through it. He somehow just knew that it was a communicator link and that someone was trying to contact him. He glanced at the symbol for a second without blinking and it suddenly expanded into a little representation of Sailor Mercury's head.  
  
"Vulcan?"  
  
"Hello Mercury."  
  
"Can you tell us what is going out there? We are having some problems getting decent readings."  
  
"I'm not to sure yet. I came up here to have friendly little spar and it turned into this giant mess. I really didn't want to have to fight this battle as Vulcan, if you know what I mean." He said.  
  
"I understand. We think that dark energy that corrupted Nabiki and Ryoga has somehow managed to get Ryoko as well, that may be why she's started to act the way she is."  
  
"Are you sure?" Vulcan asked in some surprise. "She's stronger than when I first started fighting her, but her personality doesn't seem to have changed too much."  
  
"It hasn't?" Mercury asked. "You said Nabiki and Ryoga had changed quite a bit."  
  
"I know, Ryoga was more violent and Nabiki was out to kill me, but other than that they were about the same."  
  
"We'll look into it later. Anyway, I needed to let you know that there are two people affected by this dark energy out there. Ryoko has to be stopped as quickly as possible because she is the most dangerous one to you and the others at the moment, but there is a second person out there that we haven't been able to identify yet. Ayeka may have seen something, but we can't   
  
contact her to find out either."  
  
"I just talked to her a few minutes ago."  
  
"Where her guardians with her? Katsuhito described them as a pair of large floating logs with their names pained on the sides. They are a pair of Artificially Intelligent robots or something."  
  
Vulcan glanced off to the side and saw the smoldering pile of wood and plastic that had to be two guardians in question. "I have two weird looking logs burning away here next to the small path I'm on." He walked over to examine them and saw that something had used them for a scratching post. Large divots of wood had been slashed right out of their wooden forms.  
  
"Vulcan, those things don't look like they were taken down by Ryoko. She's been blowing everything up."  
  
He blinked. "You can what I'm seeing?"  
  
"Affirmative. Little Washuu here has a visual on her computer screen of what you are seeing."  
  
"How did she do that?"  
  
"BWHAHAHAHA! I AM THE GREATEST SCIENTIFIC GENIUS IN THE UNIVERSE! THAT'S HOW!" Washuu said over the communications band and he shuddered at the sound   
  
of her voice.  
  
"Ah...okay."  
  
"Vulcan, Sailor Moon, Mars, and I are on our way. We will be bringing along some help as well."  
  
"Alright." Vulcan said with a smirk as he looked up into a nearby tree and saw that Ryoko was waiting for him. "I'll keep her occupied until you arrive."  
  
"Be careful Ranma." Sailor Moon said over her own communicator and the little window vanished as Mercury logged off as well.  
  
He looked up into the air above him as he suddenly sensed something dangerous. Ryoko was back and she was looking down on him. At first he wasn't' sure what she was going to do, but then she vanished from sight and reappeared right in front of him. Her arms were crossed over her chest and there was a dark glow about her that seemed to saturate the very air around her.  
  
"Where did a little pervert like you find those clothes?"  
  
"Found then beneath a tree." He said snidely. "Are you done playing around yet, or do you need to blow up some more trees to prove how strong you are?"  
  
"Little pervert I haven't even powered up to my full power yet and you are already running away from me like the coward you are. What the hell makes you think you are more than a glorified chew toy to me?" Ryoko asked with a smirk.  
  
For the first time since the fight began Ranma noticed that she had cat like eyes, pupils and all. He tried to ignore them as he realized that she must have be part cat in some way, but not enough to make him afraid of her.  
  
"Then lets see what you can really do if you set your mind to it. I came out here to fight you and even though the circumstances seem to have changed and you are more powerful now, you're still going to lose." He stated with every bit of arrogance he could put in his voice. Arrogance was something he was very good at. He grinned. "Or are you afraid you are going to lose to me?"  
  
Ranma watched Ryoko and the area around them, at the same time as he realized that little balls of light were floating around them and wondered where they had come from. He listened to the roar of the fire as Ryoko glared down at him with enough malice to make him think he might have gone too far.  
  
Then she made a move and kicked at him, he grinned, and casually caught her ankle to yank her off balance. He wouldn't have been able to do this without powering up to Vulcan, she was just too fast, but she was the one that forced him to fight this way so he wasn't going to complain.  
  
"Gotcha!" He snarled and lifted her off the ground and with a flick of his wrist started to spin her above his head. It was a dirty move with a lot of flash, but he was a student of Anything Goes after all. He chose his target and tossed her directly at a nearby tree, knowing that it probably wouldn't stop her, but this was only the distraction for his real move. A ball of blue light formed between his hands as she slammed into the tree and he fired a beam of blue energy.  
  
Ryoko growled as she flipped in mid air and landed against the tree feet first. She was in a crouch, and defying gravity as she glanced at Ranma. Then she narrowed her eyes as she sensed the build up of energy and activated her shield to block the blast. Blocking Ranma's attack would be   
  
simple enough since she had done so a few times already. Then, even as it formed in front of her, she got a bit of a shock, as his power level seemed to skyrocket just as it left his hands.  
  
It slammed into her shield hard enough to make it buckle under the force of the shot and caused the tree she was standing on to crack with a loud bang. It fell over with an ominous creaking sound and slammed to the ground with a rumble.  
  
She fell to the ground with a curse and instantly rolled to her feet as Ranma landed where she had just landed and created a small crater with his kick. She twisted around in the air, formed a ball of energy, and fired off her own shot.  
  
Ranma just grinned up at her as the blast passed right through him and his image faded from sight. She vanished a second later as Ranma appeared beside her and attempted to hit her across the jaw with a palm strike. When she reappeared a few yards away, she only had a glimpse of his second attack just before she was hit with a massive kick to the stomach that sent her flying into the ground. She landed hard and bounced a couple of times before she came to as stop.  
  
It wasn't enough to hurt her though and she slowly got back to her feet and watched him for any signs of movement. Her eyes lit up with energy as she growled in anger as this image of him vanished as well. For a second she wondered if he had somehow figured out how to teleport like she did, but then he reappeared several feet above her.  
  
He flipped silently through the air, landed with a gentle tap of his foot on the ground, folded his arms, and smirked at her. What little pain she was feeling quickly faded into anger as she realized he was mocking her again.  
  
But she was still amazed that he had managed to get through her shield and actually hit her a few times. The shield was hard to maintain constantly, so she had to be careful when she used it, but that blast and the follow up attack had been quite a shock. "How did you do that?" She   
  
snarled.  
  
"You underestimated me again and paid for it. I really didn't want to fight you in the first place but I was forced to and now that we've started I have every intention of finishing this fight." Ranma said.  
  
Inside his mask, the LED screen was giving him a list of possible attacks that he had never heard of before, but he somehow knew how to pull some of them off despite that. He wasn't sure where he had seen them before, but there were memories floating around in his head that seemed to confirm that he had learned them at some point.  
  
His eyes focused on one of them and he read a quick description to make sure he was thinking of the right move. The screen lit up and started to list a number of ways for him to use the technique. He recognized some of them, but he noticed a few others that he couldn't place and his memory of them was somewhat blurry on details.  
  
When the fight was over he would have to spend some time looking at the techniques to see just what they could do. He watched Ryoko with his other eye as the information scrolled across his vision and plotted his next attack. There were already several courses of action available to him. Some of them might even hurt her if he wasn't careful.  
  
"I guess I'll have to stop holding back." Ryoko said as she stepped into a stance, brought her hands up to her waist, and an aura of power formed around her.  
  
As she charged up Ranma decided on a course of action and reached deep inside to tap into his own Ki reserves once more. He needed something powerful if he was going to stop her. The girl was strong, he would give her that, but there was no way she was going to beat him. Then he noticed that she wasn't paying as much attention to him as she had been a few seconds before.  
  
He was about to attack her again, when she stopped what she was doing and turned to glare at the house for a few seconds. "You should not have done that Washuu!" She screamed and suddenly split into two different two Ryoko.  
  
Ranma hadn't seen this coming and lost his concentration as he took a step back in shock. He'd never had an opponent that was able to make a perfect clone of themselves in the middle of a fight. Cologne had once used that Splitting Cat Hairs technique, but this was something completely different. He could sense energy from both of them, as if she really had split in two. Both of them even had those jewels.  
  
One Ryoko turned to the other one and folded her arms. "I'll go and see what happened to Ryo-Ohki, you finish fighting the plebe here."  
  
"No problem." The first one said. "I owe him a proper beating for all of his perverted actions."  
  
The other one floated higher up into the air, smirked, and vanished from sight. Ranma used his senses to make sure she didn't just appear behind him as he kept watch on the other one. As far as she could tell they had been identical, even in power level. After a few seconds, he relaxed a bit as he realized that they weren't going to double-team him. "What's going on?"  
  
"That's none of your concern. Now let's continue this where we just left off." Ryoko said as she held up her hand.  
  
He kept calm as the area around him suddenly lit up with hundreds of little balls of orange light. They were far more intense than they had been the last time he saw them. It was the same thing she liked to do when she was about to form her energy sword.  
  
A move he had seen her use several times already. So what did she think she would gain by using it on him again? He wasn't sure what she had in mind, but she seemed to have lots of dirty tricks up her sleeves. Was she going to attack him using a move that just didn't work against him? Or was she trying to do something else? He wasn't sure so he took a second to form his own ball of energy.  
  
Ryoko kicked off the ground, flying at him faster than he had ever seen her move. He threw the ball forward and let it blow up a few feet from her with a bright flash of light. She yelled out in shock and slowed to halt in mid air, teleported to about twenty feet in the air, and tried to get her eyes to work again. Ranma launched himself into the air, his cape flaring around him and used all his momentum to kick her in the stomach using one of his new moves. "THUNDER KICK!"  
  
A peal of thunder accompanied the blow and sent her flying into the sky. He rolled forward and did a few flips as he fell to the ground and landed. He wondered how high up she would go before she managed to get control and came back down. He didn't think that the kick would hurt her to much, but its effects would keep her distracted for a while at least.  
  
When Vulcan had given him these powers, he hadn't really given him any special attacks as far as he knew. Instead, it seemed that the guy had focused on augmenting Ranma's abilities. Now that he was learning to use his powers more effectively, he wondered if he was wrong.  
  
The Thunder Kick was designed break through a person's defence. Then it delivers a massive amount of force to the victim's body. It was similar to that kick in the Yamasen-ken maneuvers created by his old man, only a lot more effective. He wasn't to sure about the peal of thunder, but he did know one thing about the move now that he had used it. "THAT WAS DAMN COOL!"  
  
**********  
  
Several hundred feet away, just down the side of the mountain and well out of the way of the fire was the house that Tenchi and everyone else lived in. By the time Ranma was kicking Ryoko into the sky, Katsuhito had managed to get Washuu to set up a tent and some tables for them to work at.  
  
Washuu was at her holographic computer monitoring the battle and getting as much information as she could. Her sensors were still being blocked, but with every passing minute she was learning how to filter out more and more of the interference. Katsuhito was directing Sasami and Mihoshi, who had appeared from within the house a little while after the fight started, as   
  
they set up the medical supplies. Most of them were hoping the supplies wouldn't be needed when the battle was over though.  
  
On the other side of the tent Sailor Moon, Mars, and Mercury were all using the mini computer to try to figure out what was going on out in the forest as well. All they really knew so far was that Ranma had transformed into Vulcan and was currently fighting Ryoko. Mercury was using her link with his visor to watch the battle, but it was moving so fast that she couldn't keep up with it. The interference was also causing her some problems as they all tried to watch.  
  
This time he seemed to be holding up a bit better than he had when the fight first began. Ryoko was taking more blows and they could see the surprise in her face, as he was able to defend himself from her attacks. Usagi was a bit worried about Ranma, but Ami had asked her to wait while Venus and Jupiter scouted out the area to see if they could even help.  
  
Mercury took a second to compare her notes to whatever Washuu was doing to clear the interference before she turned to her friends. "I've got some current readings finally."  
  
"What did you find out?" Moon asked.  
  
"Ranma just used a move I've never seen before. Some kind of kick that sent Ryoko flying into the sky, but I didn't have the right programs running so I didn't see just how high he sent her."  
  
"That's great!"  
  
"I can still feel the darkness moving around out there as well." Mars said. There was a worried tone to her voice as she paced back and forth. "I don't like leaving Venus and Jupiter alone out there where these things can attack them at any time they want."  
  
"Neither do I." Moon said.  
  
"We need more information." Mercury explained. "I still don't know what we are dealing with."  
  
"Let's just go out there, help save Ranma, and stop that monster from hurting him anymore. That's what we always do." Moon snapped.  
  
"We need to be more careful Meatball Head!" Mars snapped.  
  
Sailor Moon just sighed and started to worry again. She had only known Ranma for a few weeks now and she wasn't sure what she should be doing now. Ever since Mamoru had left her, she had been on an emotional rollercoaster. There were times when she really liked to be around Ranma. Well most of the time, but her mother had told her that Ranma was her soul mate for this   
  
generation and that changed things completely.  
  
Even Ranma was a bit skittish about the link that they shared with each other and constantly tried to hide his feelings from her. He really wasn't very good at it. Mamoru had years to learn and by the time they met he'd been able to keep her from even sensing him.  
  
She broke out of her thoughts and looked up as the alarm on Mercury's computer started going off and drawing everyone's attention. Mercury moved as fast as she could to check on the alarm and nearly dropped it a few seconds alter. "Ryoko is heading this way for some reason!"  
  
Katsuhito whipped around and looked at Washuu. "Why is she heading this direction?"  
  
The red headed scientist turned to look at them and sighed. "Ryoko just tried to call Ryo-Ohki to her while she was fighting the boy."  
  
"And?" Rei snapped.  
  
"Well normally it wouldn't have mattered, but I haven't been able to figure out what possessed Ryoko in the first place. So right now she is really pissed off and doing everything in her power to kill this Ranma. Ryo-Ohki is Ryoko's partner and you know what that cabbit is capable of when Ryoko is telling her what to do. They are linked together to make them a more efficient team after all."  
  
"I don't understand what this has to do with Ranma." Mercury said as she entered the information into her computer.  
  
Washuu fidgeted a little. "Well Ryo-Ohki can turn into a space ship you see."  
  
"So what?" Mars snapped at the red headed girl.  
  
"When transformed, Ryo-Ohki can sit in high orbit and fire lasers at anything on the ground." Washuu explained as she held up the little cabbit. It was inside a small ball of energy and looked like it was asleep. "I placed her in stasis a few minutes ago to make sure that Ryoko couldn't turn the ship's lasers on Ranma."  
  
"Just how powerful would you say those lasers are?" Mercury asked.  
  
"Hmm…the last time I checked her weapons systems could blow away most of this mountain in one shot." Washuu said.  
  
"What?!" Sailor Moon screamed and started to run back and forth. Then Sailor Mars just grabbed Moon's back bow and kept her from leaving the tent. "We have to help him!"  
  
"Calm down Sailor Moon, he isn't in danger now that the cabbit is in stasis." Mercury said.  
  
"Oh he's in plenty of danger." Ryoko said as she appeared over one of the tables. She glanced around at all of them and glared at the Scouts. "Who the hell are you people and why are you wearing those ridiculous outfits?!"  
  
"We're the Sailor Scouts!" Sailor Moon yelled and posed. "I'll punish you for desecrating this forest and attacking my boyfriend!"  
  
The rest of the Scouts sweatdropped suddenly and gave their leader a weird look. Ami in particular scowled at Sailor Moon for a few seconds before she said anything too rash. She turned to her computer and focused on Ryoko.  
  
"Err…I mean my friend." Moon clarified as she noticed the looks the girls were giving her.  
  
"Those two up on the hill were useless against me and went down easy enough, I doubt you can put up a more interesting fight." Ryoko said snidely.  
  
"How dare you?!" Mars yelled, but stuttered to a stop as Ryoko's energy blade suddenly appeared about a millimetre from the tip of her nose. "Eeeep!"  
  
"Ryoko, you need to calm down." Katsuhito said as he stepped forward and motioned for Tenchi to stay back behind him.  
  
"Well if it isn't the old man." The space pirate snapped as she moved the blade away from Mars and swished it through the air a few times. "I owe you a severe beating for seven hundred years of boredom."  
  
The old man just frowned and adjusted his glasses, making them gleam as he glared at her. "You do realize that you have been possessed don't you?"  
  
Ryoko snorted. "Oh, as if it's all that hard not to notice."  
  
"Let us help you."  
  
"Sorry, I have several centuries of fun to catch up on as soon as I get my revenge." Ryoko said, but then suddenly threw her hand to the side and launched the energy blade at Washuu.  
  
The scientist had started typing the instant she knew that Ryoko was coming and used her computer to make sure that she didn't appear instantly. Delaying her arrival by about two minutes and buying enough time to make sure she could get the girl under control, but she hadn't expected Ryoko to do what she just did.  
  
Just as she was about to hold up a small remote control device, the blade of the energy sword went right through it and almost ripped her hand off with it. The red head stared at her hand for a second and made sure she still had all her fingers before she even looked down at the pile of melted plastic and circuits on the ground a few feet away. "Hey!"  
  
"Better luck next time, Mom!" Ryoko said with a laugh.  
  
"Quit ignoring me!" Sailor Moon yelled and pulled out her sceptre and held up. "You're asking for it."  
  
"Ryoko, we can help you." Tenchi said as he stepped forward. He ignored the look his grandfather was giving him.  
  
"Sorry Tenchi, but being possessed and all, I have to do this, and so be a good boy and go inside where you will be safe." Ryoko said as she looked at him lustfully.  
  
"But…"  
  
"Remember to cover yourself with honey. I'll be by to help you clean it up later." Ryoko said and licked her lips.  
  
Tenchi paled a bit and moved back several steps. "Um…heheheh."  
  
"Ryoko that isn't very nice." Mihoshi said. "You need to use chocolate instead of honey, it lasts longer and tastes better."  
  
Everyone turned to look at the ditz, but she just grinned at them.  
  
"Where's Ryo-Ohki, Washuu?" Ryoko asked. "Don't make you turn all this power on you just to make you answer the question."  
  
"I placed her in stasis."  
  
"Release her."  
  
"No, not while you are in this state." The red headed scientist said.  
  
"I'm not going to ask you again." Ryoko threatened and reformed her sword.  
  
"You can't fight all of us." Sailor Mars yelled as she formed a bow and arrow made of fire and aimed it at Ryoko.  
  
Washuu pulled out a pair of small glasses and sat them on the edge of her nose as she looked at Mars' bow. "How quaint, ethereal energy manipulation with just a touch of what the locals call magic."  
  
"We use planetary mana." Mercury said absently.  
  
Katsuhito took a boken out of the sleeve of his robe and got into an attack position. He was sure he could get in a few blows before Ryoko had a chance to counter attack. By then, with any luck, Washuu would be able to place her in stasis as well. "You aren't strong enough to defeat all of us Ryoko."  
  
"Maybe I couldn't have done it yesterday, but today is a completely different story old man. So it looks like we have to fight, which one of you wants to go first?"  
  
**********  
  
From the woods around the lake Sol crouched among the shadows and watches the fight at the house. He was not in a good mood. Just a few minutes before he had spotted one of the Sailor Scouts as she pranced around in the woods with a weird look on her face.  
  
Just seeing her had ruined his whole day as memories of his time as one of the advisors came back to him again. Every time he thought about those times he started to get even more angry. The only thing that had kept him from killing her on the spot had been the fact that she wasn't the one that ruined his life. No, that punishment was going to be reserved for someone else completely.  
  
Long claws sprung out of his paw as he dug them into the dirt and glared at the house. There were three more Scouts there and he could feel it as they started to use their powers. It meant even after being possessed, he still had a connection to the magic that made him one of the Advisers.  
  
He could make out Mars as she formed her fire bow and knew that a   
  
massive amount of firepower was about to be used. Back in the Silver Millennium the Scouts rarely ever had to use their high-level powers, so just using the bow meant that they thought that the girl that they were   
  
fighting was very dangerous. Oh how right they were, he just wished could have joined her, but he was being told to wait for a better chance.  
  
He'd watched Ryoko fight the boy for the last half hour or so. Therefore, he knew what she was capable of when push came to shove. Then as he watched, the people over by the house tried to talk to each other.  
  
Sol suddenly stopped and looked about the area as he felt something familiar. He wasn't to sure what it was, but it was nagging at his memory. Then he took a closer look at the Scouts and he realized he didn't recognize one of them.  
  
The blonde-haired Scout with the odd hairstyle seemed to draw his eye as he watched. Something about her nagged at his memory and he just couldn't place it no matter how hard the tried to think. She was the strongest of the group, generating an unseen aura that dwarfed the house behind her in sheer size. He stood up for a better look and tried to remember who she might be,   
  
but he wasn't getting anything.  
  
Then he noticed something else and took a closer look at her as she waved her sceptre around and pointed it at Ryoko. "The PRINCESS!" He snarled and bared a set of deadly looking teeth. "She has the Crystal with her!"  
  
'We could put that to a very good use.' A voice in his head told him.  
  
"What did you have in mind?" Sol asked it.  
  
'The crystal would allow us to take the next step without all this useless silent maneuvering.'  
  
"Then let's see how well she guards that thing."  
  
'Good idea.'  
  
Sol smiled and the crescent moon on his large forehead glowed a little. He hadn't given into the shadow as much as Ryoko had, so he had quite a bit of control over his actions, but not enough to disobey anyway, not that he wanted to. "Let's see how chaotic we can make things after Ryoko starts to fight them. The crystal will be easier to take once the girls are distracted."  
  
**********  
  
Ranma panted for air as he scanned the area around for any sigh of Ryoko. He had gotten her with the Thunder Kick; but she had just teleported from high in the sky and ended up right beside him to counter attack.  
  
From there they had used physical blows for several seconds as they tried to get the upper hand. His cape had developed a long rip down the back when Ryoko had pulled her sword out of nowhere and almost impaled him.  
  
There was a large hole in the ground nearby with a bunch of smoke wafting out of it from where he had tried to Ki blast her, but he had known that it wouldn't affect her very much. He still had the feeling that she was playing with him, but he wasn't going to admit that to anyone.  
  
So he watched the area with all his senses and tried to predict what she would do next. He was almost positive that she would attack him from the air again. She liked to drop large energy blasts on him occasionally, just to keep him moving around and guessing what she might try next.  
  
Unfortunately, she had vanished after he hit her with the Ki blast and now he couldn't sense her either. Her Ki had completely vanished as well and no matter how hard he strained he just couldn't locate her. The fire that had been burning all around him was beginning to die down a bit, but left more smoke in the air than he liked.  
  
He didn't like to fight blind, but the longer this situation went on the more he was depending on his blind fighting skills. The only thing keeping him from using them completely was his visor. It had the ability to see through the thick blanket of smoke that filled the air around him. He was using it to make sure Ryoko didn't sneak up on him as he slowly moved through the smoke. His cape fluttered in the slight wind that the fire was kicking up.  
  
"Where the hell did she go?" He wondered aloud.  
  
His visor was telling him that the area was clear, with no sign of Ryoko anywhere. Then he caught some movement out of the corner of his eye that the visor wasn't showing and he turned just slightly to get a closer look. For just a brief second he saw Ryoko just hovering in the air glaring down at him. He wasn't sure, but she seemed to be thinking about something.  
  
A bead of sweat trailed down the side of his face as she vanished again and he still wasn't able to follow it. Then he saw her high in the air behind him and he turned to look at her just as she vanished again. She was trying to stay out of his line of sight for some reason and he didn't like it.  
  
For some reason it reminded him of the Hell's Cradle attack his father had developed a few months before. His visor flickered for a second, but he ignored it since it wasn't giving him the information he needed. He was about to turn it off the little map appeared and informed him that people were heading his way.  
  
Then he felt something grab his ankles and he looked down in shock to see Ryoko's forehead and eyes sticking out of the dirt. Her hands grabbed his ankles as she lowered out of sight and he started to sink into the ground. He struggled to free his feet as he sank, but it was like trying to lift a mountain, they just wouldn't budge.  
  
"What the hell!" He yelled as his waist phased into the earth and he started to go numb. Then he tried to grab onto the ground to stop from sinking any further and they passed through as well. "SHIT!"  
  
Just as his chin was about to pass through the ground as shadow rose up from the ground nearby and formed into Ryoko. She started to laugh as he struggled. "Let's see you get out of this you little pest!"  
  
"This won't stop me!" He managed to yell just as his head went below the ground.  
  
"BWHAHAHAHAHAH!" Ryoko cackled. "That's the end of you."  
  
Ranma struggled against the rock, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get the right amount of leverage he needed to move his arm and break the rock around him. She had phased him right into the stone itself and was letting it slowly entomb him.  
  
A certain part of his mind was a bit surprised that his visor was still working and feeding him advice on the situation, but even then it was telling him how to free himself. It informed him that he only had a little while to free himself and he knew it. He could only hold his breath for a   
  
few minutes before he would need to escape or die.  
  
By sheer force of will, he calmed himself down and tried to think his way through what the visor was telling him. Then he thought of something and he started to concentrate. His old man had taught him a number of meditations techniques over the years and one of them fit this situation perfectly.  
  
At first, nothing seemed to happen, but then deep within him something shifted. He wasn't sure what it was, but knew it dealt with his new abilities and that something was guiding him. Gritting his teeth, he focused as hard as he could and his battle aura started to form around him.  
  
Up above Ryoko stopped laughing as she felt the ground around her feet shift, just slightly, and she glanced down at the ground in disbelief. She took a step back to wait for it to happen again. "There's no way…" She muttered in shock.  
  
Then after several seconds, it settled down and she breathed a sigh of relief. There was no way he could escape from this. She had phased him into solid stone and left him there. Straightening up, she looked off towards the house where her clone was currently fighting against several opponents and she wondered if she go and help.  
  
"VENUS CRESCENT BEAM!" Sailor Venus screamed as she ran out of the trees and blasted Ryoko right in the chest. "I'll kill you!"  
  
Ryoko really hadn't been hurt by the blast, took several steps back, and let the power of the blast wash over her. "On the other hand…" She reminded herself. "There were still a few people around to play with." She watched as the blond girl started to dig at the dirt. She sneered and folded her arms. "He put up a good fight, but he wasn't really a match for me."  
  
"Ranma!" Venus yelled. She wasn't really paying attention to Ryoko.  
  
"You will not ignore me!" The space pirate yelled and raised her arm up. A large ball of energy formed in her hand as she glared at Sailor Venus.  
  
"JUPITER OAK REVOLUTION!"  
  
Her head snapped around just as Jupiter fired off her own attack and sent two dozen balls of magical electricity flying. They started to slam into her, bouncing her back and forth as they exploded all around her body. Then she dropped her hand and let the energy blast fade away as the area around her filled with tiny little floating logs arcing with energy. They started to blast her at the exact instant that the first attack hit her and she was forced to struggle against the attack.  
  
Her scream of "Ayeka!" was lost among the sound of detonations that accompanied the combined attack. All she could do was endure the energy storm as it tried to rip her into little pieces and cook her.  
  
The two girls ran out of the forest a few seconds later. They slowly walked over to where Venus was trying to dig Ranma out of the ground. She hadn't been able to make much headway though since it turned to stone a few inches down.  
  
They looked down in shock as they realized there was a good chance that Ranma really was dead. It had been almost three minutes since he went under and there hadn't been a sign of movement since then. Behind them Ayeka's attack finally ran out of energy and Ryoko dropped to the ground with smoke wafting off her body.  
  
My god, I've never actually seen Ryoko kill anyone before." Ayeka said. She looked a little green.  
  
"We've never had anyone die before." Jupiter said.  
  
"He's not dead!" Venus growled as she dug weakly at the stone. She had no idea how far down Ryoko had sent him, but she intended to continue until she found him.  
  
"Come on Venus, we have to get back and help the others, there's nothing we can do here." Sailor Jupiter said sadly. She could almost feel the grief that Venus was feeling at that moment. "Come on Venus, let's go."  
  
"I will not give up…" Venus yelled and suddenly pitched head first into a hole as the ground around her gave way with a rumble of falling rock.  
  
"Venus?!" Jupiter yelled as she ran forward and knelt at the edge of the hole.  
  
Ayeka moved over to see what was going on as well, but she didn't make it far as the ground beneath her gave out as well. She squawked loudly as she found herself in freefall for just a brief second. Then she landed in pile of soft dirt and nearly had the wind knocked out of her.   
  
He stared up at the top of the hole about ten feet above her in confusion. It took her a second to figure out that she was lying at an angle with her head pointed towards the ground, but she managed to roll around and slide down the side of the pile of dirt until she hit a spot that would   
  
support her.  
  
A few yards away Venus stood up on top of her own pile and looked up at Jupiter's head, as it seemed to hover within the hole. "What the heck?" The blond Scout muttered.  
  
"I thought you said Ranma was buried down here?" Ayeka asked as she looked around at the walls. They looked like someone had used a chain saw to carve them out of the rock.  
  
"He was!" Venus yelled. "I saw him sucked right into the ground by Ryoko just a few minutes ago."  
  
Jupiter hopped over the edge and landed right next to Venus and almost ended up on her back side when the dirt shifted under her feet. She barely managed to keep her balance as she waved her arms for a few seconds. Then she slid down the side of the pile and walked over to Ayeka. "What is this place?"  
  
"I've never even heard of it before." Ayeka said as she touched the wall. "Hey, this stone is warm to the touch."  
  
Jupiter gave her an odd look as she touched the wall. "What the heck?"  
  
Venus glanced at her friend and decided to check out the other side of the pile to see if there was any sign of Ranma. He had to be down here somewhere. She slid down to the floor and made sure she didn't accidentally trip over anything. Almost immediately, she noticed that the cave had a   
  
large hole in one wall that was hidden in a dark corner. "I found something!"  
  
Seconds later Ayeka and Jupiter found themselves looking into a small tunnel filled with powdered dirt. Venus couldn't figure out how this hole in the ground had appeared out of nowhere like this. "What in the world is going on?"  
  
"I think Ranma might have done this." Jupiter said.  
  
"How?!" Venus yelled. "He has a powerful energy blast, but nothing that can do this."  
  
"I'm not sure, let's head down the tunnel and see where it leads."  
  
"I'm almost afraid what we might find down there." Venus muttered. Now that she was close to finding Ranma, she was having second thoughts for some reason.  
  
"You do realize that Ranma probably made that hole don't you?" Ayeka asked as she poked at the wall.  
  
"Well yeah, but…" Venus muttered.  
  
"Remember what he looked like when he saved us a little while ago." Jupiter reminded her friend.  
  
Venus blushed. "That isn't fair!"  
  
"True, but boy was it worth it." Jupiter said happily.  
  
"Come on you two perverts, let's see if he's down the hole." Ayeka muttered and cautiously stepped into the tunnel.  
  
"Oh like you didn't get an eye full too." Jupiter said to the Jurian princess.  
  
Ayeka blushed. "I have no idea what you are talking about."  
  
"Uh huh!" Both girls said and giggled.  
  
"Ayekaaaaa!"  
  
The princess froze as she heard her name called and turned around to see Ryoko floating down from above them. Venus and Jupiter just gaped at her as she descended. The possessed space pirate came to a stop several fee from them and glared. Her clothing was beginning to look a little ripped and shredded, it even had a bit of smoke still coming from it.  
  
"I hit her with ever thing I had!" Jupiter muttered.  
  
"Ryoko always did recover faster than a normal person would." Ayeka muttered.  
  
"It wasn't good enough was it?" Ryoko asked snidely. "You girls are getting on my nerves. I just want to kill the pervert, is that to much to ask?"  
  
"I won't let you!" Sailor Venus yelled.  
  
"Ryoko, you need to calm down and let us get that thing out of you." Ayeka said as calmly as she could. Even she had to wonder if she could take on Ryoko when she was as demented as this. This sort of behavior was what made her brother Yosho imprison her for seven hundred years.  
  
"Princess, you are so asking for a royal spanking." Ryoko snapped.  
  
"Do not believe that I will go down that easily." She said haughtily. "I am a princess of royal blood. You are no threat to me."  
  
Ryoko just laughed. "You aren't strong enough to beat me Ayeka, you never were, and you never will be."  
  
They glared at each other and for a second Venus wondered why they looked like they were trading electricity with their eyes. Then Ryoko dismissed Ayeka by looking away and waving her hand. "Bah, you are beneath my notice now. The boy is my only concern, so where did you three hide the body?"  
  
"We haven't found one yet." Jupiter snapped.  
  
She glared at them and looked around a little more. "This cave wasn't here when I was down here a little while ago, it was solid rock. So where is he? I will finish him off."  
  
"We won't let you hurt him anymore." Venus said.  
  
"We will protect him." Jupiter said.  
  
"I don't need anyone's protection."  
  
The girls gasped and turned to see Ranma walking out of the tunnel in front of them. His outfit shredded in several places. Along his arms, legs, and even his cape looked like it had seen better days. His hair was a mess and one of the visors' lenses over his eyes was cracked. A line of blood ran from the side of his head and down his neck. Other than that, he looked like he was   
  
in decent shape.  
  
"Ranma!" Venus yelled and ran over to him. "Are you alright?"  
  
"Not now Venus, we need to stop her first." Ranma muttered and yanked his arm way from Venus.  
  
She looked a little hurt.  
  
"Are you alright Ranma?" Ayeka repeated Venus's question.  
  
"I'm fine." He said as he used the torn sleeve of his jacket to wipe the blood off the side of his head. "It'll take more than being buried alive to stop me."  
  
"You really should learn not to piss me off pervert." Ryoko growled as she formed a ball of energy in her hands. "This hole you seem to have created will be your tomb."  
  
Ranma started to laugh. "You pathetic little moron, do you think I would have walked out here without a plan?"  
  
Ryoko hesitated. "Yeah right, you can barely stand as it is."  
  
He smirked as he bent over a bit, bringing up his hands and forming two balls of Ki in his hands. "You keep underestimating me."  
  
"YOU'RE A PATHETIC WIMP!" Ryoko screamed and fired a beam of energy at him.  
  
His hands came together and compressed both balls of Ki until they popped like bubbles, but then Ryoko's beam slammed into a field a few inches from Ranma. It deflected to the side and into the wall, digging a large hole. "I'm learning your tricks. Every time you use them I get a little better at reading how you move, at finding weaknesses and if you keep this up I'm going to learn how to do all your little secrets." Ranma threatened her.  
  
Ryoko's eyes started to glow brightly as she got angrier and angrier. She started to growl deep in her throat as she glared at Ranma. Her fists clenched and she ground her teeth as she tried to control herself. "I am going to make you pay for what you did to me!"  
  
"You just jumped to conclusions and threw a temper tantrum." Ranma mocked her. "You. Can't. Beat. Me."  
  
"AGHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!  
  
Behind Ranma, the girls all started to power up as well as they realized that Ranma intended to end this fight here and now. Ayeka's clothing shifted as she finally donned her Jurian battle armor as she watched Ryoko seething anger as Ranma insulted her.  
  
She noticed something, stepped a little closer to Ranma, and whispered something into his ear. Ayeka made sure Ranma knew what she was talking about and he glanced at Ryoko. A second later he narrowed his eyes and nodded. She moved away from him and prepared to attack Ryoko with   
  
everything she had left. There was no other option.  
  
Jupiter stepped to the side, focused on Ryoko, and prepared to fire off her attack one more time. There was no way they were going to let this monster get away from them. At the same time, Venus moved a little closer to Ranma, and prepared to use her magical attack on Ryoko. This time she would use her most powerful attack to make sure she went down.  
  
Then they watched as Ryoko's eyes changed color, they had been white up until now, but they flickered and turned bright red as completely lost her temper. "ALL OF YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!"  
  
Glancing over at the girls, Ranma hoped they had the strength to survive this fight. Ryoko had pushed him to the limit and he didn't have much more to give. "Bring it on you wimp! You glorified Tomboy! I bet you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn!"  
  
Shaking in rage Ryoko's shadow formed around her like an aura until the only thing visible was her body shape and a pair of glowing red eyes. There was a feeling in the air as she continued to draw in more and more energy. However, for some reason, Ranma didn't look very concerned about the development. He was grinning instead, as if his plan was working perfectly.  
  
Ranma got into the classic Ki blast pose and formed a ball of energy between his hands as he smirked at the woman floating in front of him. "I wonder if I should thank you?" He asked with a rather disturbing grin that would have reminded Soun of Genma, if he had been there to see it.  
  
With her hands above her head a ball of energy started to form from her upraised hands. Ryoko surveyed the group in front of her with contempt as she gasped for air. She cocked her head to the side and glared at them. "What makes you think that?"  
  
"Because of you I just learned something new and you are about to experience it."  
  
She snorted. "Why in the world would you even bother? Are you going to use the same lame attack you always seem to use? I already know you can throw energy blasts. Big deal, I've seen slugs that were more dangerous than you."  
  
Suddenly the light in the cave begins to alter and warp around Ranma as the ball of Ki starts to get brighter and brighter. Then lines of energy flow around his body and arcing into the air around him. It rises several feet above him and falls back down to his body in a constant display of power that started to frighten the girls as they watched.  
  
His clothing fluttered around him as the energy built up into a loud moan of power that rebounded of the walls of the hole. The one remaining lens on his visor lit up, glowing just as brightly as the ball of energy does and displaying just how pissed off he is. "Actually I told you about the attack because I needed to distract you for a second."  
  
"VULCAN METAL STORM!" Ranma screamed out as he thrusts his hands forward and   
  
sends a blast of golden energy at Ryoko. Unlike his previous blasts, this one seems to be about ten times more powerful than anything he'd thrown at her so far.  
  
Ryoko isn't even impressed as she fires her own blast into the center of Ranma's and for a brief second stops its forward progress. Then the two beams start to shake and shiver just as they compress against each other, forming a large ball of multi colored energy.  
  
The two of them start to lose control of the beams as the energy continues to build up. Ranma's arms begin to shake as he struggles against the flow of energy building up all around them. By this time Ranma can't see Ryoko anymore and he glances out of the corner of his eye at Ayeka.  
  
"I have an idea."  
  
"How can we help?"  
  
The Scouts nod and step a little closer.  
  
On the other side of the large ball of energy Ryoko is cursing under her breath. She is absolutely amazed that this is happening and doesn't really know what to do next. No matter what she sends at him he seems to keep just out of reach.  
  
The growing ball of energy begins to light up like a small sun and she snarls in anger and cuts off her beam. Then she dives behind the pile of dirt just as it's explodes, sending quite a bit of dirt high into the air. It rains back down a few seconds later, filling the air with dust and ash   
  
from the explosion.  
  
"Now!" Ranma yells.  
  
Suddenly a golden chain made of tiny hearts whips in from out of nowhere, wraps itself around Ryoko's neck. She is suddenly yanked about ten feet into the air and even before she has a chance to land her body is hit with an electrical explosion as Sailor Jupiter attacks her. Right in the middle of that, Ayeka appears in the air above her and screams.  
  
Ryoko's head snaps around as she struggles to free herself from the chain, but before she has a chance to teleport, Ayeka's scream startles her. The Jurian Princess has a sword in her hand and does a quick attack to sever both of Ryoko's hands right above where the jewels are sitting in her   
  
wrists. Ryoko watches in shock as her hands are removed from her body. All her newfound power begins to vanish even before she hits the floor.  
  
In the midst of all that, she barely manages to avoid Ayeka's final swing as she attempts to remove the third jewel at the base of Ryoko's neck. Ayeka slowed to a stop just as Ryoko slams into the ground and watches for a second as Venus and Jupiter jump forward to attack her.  
  
Jupiter pummels her with an electric attack and Venus tosses out a Love and Beauty Shock that injures the space pirate even more. Ayeka concentrates and forms a small swarm of little logs around her in the air and lets them charge up for a few seconds.  
  
The instant Venus and Jupiter see this they jump out of the way and she gives a mental command to the logs to make them fire. It wasn't the first time she had used the particular attack on Ryoko, but its affect was quite different than it normally was.  
  
All the little logs flare up and fire off a beam of laser light. It dropped on her like lightning, slamming into Ryoko's prone form, making her scream out in pain for the first time all day. Ayeka lets the attack run for about ten seconds before she powers down to get a better look at Ryoko.   
  
She couldn't have held it for much longer anyway.  
  
As soon as she finishes she spoted Ranma looking at her he stood on the floor of the cave. She lands next to Ranma and handed him the sword. "Thanks for letting me borrow it."  
  
Ranma nodded as he took the sword and swung it around a few times. "No problem, now lets finish this."  
  
"Right."  
  
Then the girls back off as Ranma turned and walked over to Ryoko and glared down at her. He holds the sword up for her to get a closer look at it, reflecting her image in the metal of the blade. Ryoko just used her legs to back up a few feet and took a second to replace her hands, using the same trick she had used when Tenchi removed one of her hands in their first fight.  
  
She took a second and noticed that his armor was almost completely destroyed after it had been used to shield him from this latest explosion. Even his mask was giving off the occasional spark as he glared down at her, telling her that the visor was no longer working properly.  
  
She hadn't taken much damage though because she had time to take cover before it went off. Unfortunately she hadn't realized that they'd had enough time form a battle plan like this to catch her by surprise. Now she knew she was in trouble and she would have to act quick if she wanted to   
  
survive this.  
  
"Now…" Ranma started.  
  
"All of you are going to pay for this humiliation." Ryoko threatened them.  
  
Ranma just snorted. Unlike Ryoko, he had just dodged the blast as best he could, but his armor had taken quite a beating. Almost half of his cape was missing, and the other half wasn't in very good shape. There were large holes in his pants and jacket as well. The one remaining piece of his   
  
visor was also shorting out as it flickered on and off.  
  
Ryoko moved around a little, holding her ribs, and turns to look at Ranma as he stand in front of her. She doesn't even have time to react as he almost casually takes a swing at her head with the sword. The sound the blade makes as it cuts through the air is the only warning she has of the attack.  
  
She leans back as the blade passes through the space where her neck had just been and can feel the air as it passes by. Ranma spins the sword around a couple of times before he places the sword back in his sub space pocket and smirked at her.  
  
A few seconds later the girls all walk over and stand behind Ranma. Sailor Venus goes to grab his arm, but stops in mid motion, blushes a little as she recalls something, and stands beside him without touching him.  
  
Jupiter glances at Venus, shakes her head as if she was dizzy, then makes sure that Ranma knows she's there too by standing on the other side of him as they all look at Ryoko.  
  
"Got you." He informs her as he steps to the side and looks around in the grass for a second, ignoring the confused look on Ryoko's face. Then he reaches down between some rocks at the edge of the grass to pick up something.  
  
She staggered to her feet and wonders why she feels even weaker now. "You haven't won yet you pervert, not while I'm still alive. I'm still not sure how you pulled this off, but don't think you have me defeated just because you took my power jewels."  
  
He turns to look at her. "When you split earlier I hadn't realized that your jewels weren't glowing anymore, even when you used your powers. I was too busy running around acting like an idiot to really notice it. Then Ayeka here mentioned that fact to me a few minutes ago and the rest of us quickly came up with a plan to take you down. It was easier to pull off than I thought." He said as he held up the jewel that had been on her throat.  
  
She carefully reached up to her throat and realized that she had let her guard down. He'd been able to get close enough to swing the blade like a bat. Thus, allowing him to knock the jewel off her throat with the very tip of the blade without even scratching her. She steps back as the girls move to surround her and power up their attacks.  
  
"I win." Ranma says as he raises his fist with the jewel and it starts to glow with energy. "I don't normally hit a girl like this, but I'm going to make an exception and just knock you out. After that I'm going to go and deal with your other self."  
  
Ryoko sneered at them and folded her arms. "Not yet you haven't, you just said it yourself, I'm only one of two and you have to beat both of us to truly win this game. Her jewels are still working perfectly and when we merge back together she will be even stronger than she was before!" Ryoko yells and vanishes before any of them can stop her.  
  
"DAMN IT!" Ranma screamed as soon as she isn't there anymore and looks around for a sneak attack, but is a bit worried when she doesn't appear. "Where did she go?!"  
  
"To find the other Ryoko!" Ayeka yelled as she realizes what the clone had meant when it was talking to them.  
  
"Let's move!" Venus yells and takes off at a run with Jupiter following along behind her.  
  
**********  
  
Mars, ever impatient and determined to protect her princess at all costs, growled under her breath as she watched the hovering girl. As far as she was concerned, Ryoko was just another Youma, and wouldn't be alive for much longer if she had any say at all. So what did the rest of them seem to be doing about her?  
  
Not a damned thing, and it was pissing her off to no end. The strangers didn't seem to think this situation was that big of a problem either, but she couldn't tell why. The red headed woman that the Mercury was hovering around seemed to think she knew everything and didn't hesitate to tell anyone that would listen. Mars had tried to tell Moon and Mercury that the woman seemed to have a dangerous aura about her as well, but neither of them was listening to her.  
  
She wanted to throttle Sailor Moon for being a ditz in general, but there wasn't all that much she could do at the moment. Mars glared at Ryoko some more as her and the red head argued about some cat or rabbit thing. They were tossing names around so fast that it was little hard to keep up with what they were saying. She considered talking to the others for a second, but then decided that doing that wouldn't work either. They didn't have anything in common except this woman and her connection to Ranma.  
  
Then on the other hand, Mars just didn't trust them. A few seconds later Ryoko stopped yelling, floated up into the air, and looked out into the forest. She turned back to them, and suddenly formed a small ball of energy above the palm of her hand. "It looks like I'm going to have to speed things up a bit."  
  
"Let's just talk about this." Moon told her. "We don't have to fight."  
  
Ryoko just rolled her eyes as she turned and looked at Sailor Moon like she was an interesting bug. Then the ball of energy suddenly grew in size and she threw it at Sailor Moon. The blonde pony tailed Scout didn't react like she should have. Mars just stepped in front of her, formed a bow of fire, and attacked all in one smooth motion. She had to protect her Princess at all costs. "MARS FLAME SNIPER!"  
  
"Mars! No don't attack!" Moon yelled half a second later.  
  
Neither of the girls listened to Sailor Moon, so she had a front row seat as the two attacks slammed into each other just a few feet from where Mars was standing and they exploded. All the girls, except for Washuu, screamed in shock as the force of the blast swept through the tent.  
  
Sailor Moon and Mihoshi were blown off their feet when the tent was ripped out of the ground and sent flying into the sky. Mars used her body to protect Moon from the force of the blast and received the most damage. By the time it stopped, her hair was a mess and several holes had appeared in her uniform. Still on her feet, she slumped a bit as the effects of the explosion finally receded.  
  
At the same time, every thing that wasn't over a hundred pounds was sent flying into the air with the tent. Washuu quickly erected a force field to block as much of it as possible before it managed to hit anyone. Tenchi pulled Sasami to the ground to protect her and Katsuhito just stood there and seemed to ignore it. Anything that might have hit him just curved around his body and continued on its way once it was beyond him.  
  
Sailor Mercury, who was using Washuu's force field for cover continued to scan Ryoko as best she could, looking for any weakness that they could exploit against her. So far she hadn't managed to find anything that might even be considered a weakness. She tensed up a little when she noticed that Mars was heading back over to Ryoko and she didn't look happy at all.  
  
"I've had enough of you." Sailor Mars growled at Ryoko.  
  
The woman hovered a foot or so off the ground and looked around her, quite surprised that the explosion had done so little damage. At the very least, she had expected it to hurt one of the girls, knocking one or two of them out, a broken bone, or even killing one of them. But they all appeared to be in perfect health. She sighed and muttered a few curses under her breath.  
  
"You girls have got to have more luck than anyone I've ever seen. Even that boy I'm fighting in the woods back there was bleeding from more than one would after I blasted him, but not you."  
  
"Ranma?" Moon whispered. She closed her eyes, shuddered a bit, and remembered what Queen Serenity had told her about him being her Soul Mate. Ryoko had just reminded her why she was out her in the first place. They couldn't even go home until Ryoko was defeated and Ranma was safe. Rallying her strength, she straightened up and opened her eyes. "This crap has gone on long enough!"  
  
Mars glanced at her leader and raised an eyebrow at the course language. She had never heard Usagi say something like that. "What the heck?"  
  
Moon stalked forward and held her sceptre up. "I am the soldier of love and Justice. And in the name of the Moon, I will Punish You! Even if I have to beat you unconscious with this thing!"  
  
A look of surprise crossed Ryoko's face as stared down at the blonde haired girl, at the sceptre, and then threw her head back and started to laugh She laughed so hard that she nearly fell out of the air. Instead, still floating   
  
in the air, she fell over backwards and rolled around. "WHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!"  
  
Sailor Moon glowered at her, scowled, and raised her sceptre up into the ir. Mercury and Mars ran forward, stood behind her a few seconds later, and prepared their own attacks. "You asked for it!"  
  
"MERCURY AQUA RHAPSODY!"  
  
"STARLIGHT HONEYMOON THERAPY KISS!"  
  
"MARS FLAME SNIPER!"  
  
The Scouts attacks quickly launched at Ryoko, but she seemed to be paying more attention than expected. The girls were quite surprised that in mid laugh she just vanished, before the attacks could even get close enough to hit. They continued until they hit the ground a few hundred yards in the distance and exploded, sending dirt high into the air.  
  
Katsuhito winced a bit as the lands around his home take even more damage. If this kept up he would have to replace more than half the trees on the grounds. Then Ryoko reappeared behind the girls and blasted Sailor Mercury before anyone can even move, sending the girl flying into the side of the house.  
  
She doesn't even have time to scream before she hit the wall and slid down to the ground. Tenchi and Sasami both run over to her and start to examine her for injuries. They are somewhat surprised to find that other than being a little groggy she doesn't have any damage at all. She has   
  
Tenchi help her to her feet and she can barely stand. Using the wall to keep her balance she shakes her head, pulls her computer out, and flips it open.  
  
Mars barely has time to spin around and fire off another Flame Sniper attack, but this time Ryoko doesn't even dodge. She just holds out her hand and lets it slam into the force field. The attack rebounds off to the side, and heads right for Katsuhito, who hasn't even moved.  
  
He crouches and bats it out of the air with his boken and sends it flying into the ground behind him, but sets it on fire. Within seconds, the boken is nothing but a handle and a pile of smoking ash at his feet.  
  
"I thought I might get you with that one old man." Ryoko said as she snapped her fingers.  
  
The old man just shrugged and tossed it to the ground. "You're still too young to defeat me Ryoko."  
  
Still helping Sailor Mercury, Tenchi gives him a weird look as the old man shrugs and adjusts his glasses. Then they watch as Sailor Mars formed another magical arrow of fire and pointed it at Ryoko. They stepped back and Sailor Moon nervously tells her not fire another one.  
  
Ryoko notices Sailor Mars' actions out of the corner of her eye and quickly holds up her hand and waves a finger in her face. The three jewels on her body flare up for a brief second, and then a wave of energy surges from her to slam into Sailor Mars.  
  
The girl cried out and flies right into the side of the house just a few feet from where Sailor Mercury hit it a few seconds before, but this time, because of the previous damage to the wall. It creates a large hole leading directly into the living room. Sailor Moon can only gape at what   
  
Ryoko has done to her friends. For a moment she's frozen in place as she tries to assimilate it all.  
  
"There we go, another nuisance down and just a couple more to go."  
  
Mihoshi and Sasami run over to check on the girl as quickly as they can. They have to spend a little while tossing the remains of several boards and other bits of the wall out of the way until they find Mars underneath the rubble. She appears to be in good shape, but there is a large bump on the side of her head and she's babbling about meatball heads and an ice cream sandwich.  
  
"Mars! Sailor Moon yelled as she broke out of her shock, ran over to her friend, and knelt down next to her.  
  
Katsuhito looks over at Ryoko. "Tenchi, she may not be as dangerous as we thought."  
  
"What do you mean grandpa?"  
  
"She's had all these chances to kill us and yet none of are dead yet, she may be fighting the possession on some level."  
  
"I'm not too sure about that." Washuu spoke up. She was still working on the holographic computer. She hadn't bothered to drop her force field now that it had been employed in the fight, so there was a bubble of energy swirling around her as she worked.  
  
"Why?" He asked her.  
  
"I'm not sure, but her subconscious does have something to do with it. Her basic readings have been changing ever since that thing entered her. I'm working on it, but I could take me some time to get that thing out of her and if the changes continue at this rate there won't be anything left of the old Ryoko by the time I do figure out how to split them."  
  
"Sailor Mooncan split them if she needs to." Sailor Mercury said as she walked over. She was still a little woozy from the earlier attack, but she was already starting to feel much better. "I better get over there and help Sailor Moon out before she does something she shouldn't."  
  
"Something she shouldn't do?" Washuu asks.  
  
"By using the Silver Crystal, it's very dangerous so we keep it around as a last resort weapon. We tend to use it when we go up against the leaders of whomever we are fighting. It's usually an all or nothing type fight to the death."  
  
"That thing Queen Serenity used to lug around in her crown?"  
  
Mercury thought back for a second and nodded. "The first Serenity kept it in her crown, but after that most of them held it inside a broach like Sailor Moon does."  
  
Washuu winced and watched as Mercury ran over to where Moon was kneeling next to Mars, completely unaware that Ryoko was about to attack them again. The blue haired girl got into position several yards away from her and yelled out her attack phrase. "MERCURY AQUA PHAPSODY!"  
  
A massive amount of magically powered water fired from Mercury's hands and slammed into Ryoko's back, making the girl stagger forward and away from the hole in the side of the house. Moon looked up at the sudden movement, noticed just how close Ryoko was, and wondered why she hadn't realized just how close she had been. She carefully sat Mars' head back down as carefully as she could and stood up.  
  
Soaking wet and just a little irritated, Ryoko sneered at Sailor Mercury and held up her hand. Once again the jewels briefly flared with light and something swirled around her hand. "You're annoying me, have a little taste of what you will be experiencing as you die."  
  
Sailor Mercury dove to the side just as the jewels flared, but she stumbled and realized that she wasn't feeling as well as she thought.  
  
"No!" Moon yelled as she ran forward, but she wasn't fast enough.  
  
They could only watch as the girl, still stunned from her earlier blow, was hit with the full force of the blast. It lifted her off the ground and tossed her into the air like a piece of cloth, and then she reached the top of the arc.  
  
For just a second she appeared to be floating in mid air, but then she plummeted right into the heart of the lake beside the house. A plume of water rose fifteen feet into the air as she landed in an ungraceful belly flop and vanished below the surface.  
  
"MERCURY!!" Sailor Moon screamed.  
  
There was total silence for several seconds as everyone waited for Mercury to resurface, but as the water calmed down there was no sign of the blue haired Scout. Ryoko took it as a good sign and started to laugh as she lifted off the ground. Then when she was about ten feet up, she turned and looked down on Sailor Moon and formed a ball of energy. "You're next you blonde pest."  
  
"No!" Sailor Moon yelled.  
  
She ran for the lake, there had to be some sign of Mercury, but then Ryoko flew over her head and blocked her from reaching the lake. "That's far enough girl, prepare to die."  
  
"Get out of my way!"  
  
Ryoko thrust her hand forward and fired the energy blast, but in an almost amazing bit of luck, Moon suddenly tripped. It was impossible to see what had caught her foot, but it was impossible to miss the fact that the beam of energy missed hitting her by several inches as it flew by. Washuu's   
  
force field was still active, so all she had to do was expand it to make sure the blast didn't hit the house.  
  
"You lucky little…!" Ryoko screamed and formed her sword. "You're as lucky as the pervert!"  
  
Sailor Moon tripped a lot, and because Ranma had been training her for several weeks now she was able to roll with the fall and come back up on her feet in an instant. She blinked in surprise and saw that Ryoko was heading right for her and had formed her energy sword. She whimpered a bit as the woman glared at her hatefully and floated towards her.  
  
"Can't we talk about this?" Moon stuttered as she backed away.  
  
"No, now die!"  
  
Moon shrieked and twisted out of the way as the sword missed her head by a couple of inches and she had to move her head to the side. Then she tripped over her own ponytails, ended up falling below Ryoko, and scrambled away on her hands and knees.  
  
Ryoko lost it completely as she missed again and threw her energy sword at Sailor Moon's retreating back side. "If I can't hit one end I'll aim for the one I see the most!"  
  
Then Sailor Moon rolled to the side and let it miss her by a mile, looked over her shoulder, and pulled an eye lid down and stuck her tongue out at Ryoko. Once she was up on her feet she ran into the trees nearby using her full Scout enhanced speed. The last any of them saw of her was the tips of her hair and boots as she passed by a large bush next to the lake.  
  
"She was doing all that on purpose?" Ryoko muttered as she gaped at the girl. "What the hell?"  
  
Inside the house, Sasami and Mihoshi were placing Rei on the couch so that she could rest. Sasami was making sure the Galaxy Police officer didn't do anything weird, like trying to perform first aid on Sailor Mars. Luckily Mihoshi was easily distracted with chocolate chip cookies.  
  
**********  
  
Ranma, Ayeka, Sailor Venus and Jupiter ran through the trees, making their way back towards the house as fast as they could. They came out of the woods on the other side of the lake and saw the battle going on in front of the house. Ranma glanced around and frowned.  
  
"How the heck did we get all the way over here?"  
  
"We've been running and fighting for some time now, we must have circled the house in all the smoke and confusion of the battle." Sailor Venus said, her voice sounding different than she normally did. "Though I did have other things on my mind, a naked something..." She said with a significant glance at Ranma's backside.  
  
"We don't have time for that kind of thing right now!" Ayeka yelled at them. "The others are in danger!"  
  
"Gotta enjoy the tundra." Venus smirked and elbowed Jupiter.  
  
"Scenery." Jupiter automatically corrected and slapped her hand away.  
  
"Whatever, it's still worth thinking about."  
  
Jupiter nodded.  
  
"I can't believe you two!" Ayeka yelled.  
  
"What are you guys yelling about?" Ranma asked as he turned away from the fight. "We have to get over there, that version of Ryoko over there seems to be stronger than the one we just fought. She's causing quite a mess."  
  
Ayeka glanced at the fight, and winced as Sailor Mars went through the side of the house. Monster woman seemed to be displaying powers she normally didn't use when they fought each other. She wondered if they were only available to her when she had all three jewels powering her. That reminded her of the one they were chasing after. "Have you spotted the clone yet?"  
  
"No, thy may already have merged. The jewels seem to be glowing on that one too." Ranma explained as he indicated Ryoko as she confronted Sailor Mercury. "Those things are really noticeable so I'm not sure why I didn't missed them on the other one."  
  
"You had other things on your mind." Venus said. Then she muttered under her breath and glanced at Ranma, even with his ripped clothing he looked good to her. 'I know I do.'  
  
"Uh oh." Ranma said as he pointed at Sailor Mercury. "She just made a huge mistake."  
  
Venus and Jupiter, suddenly standing a little to close to Ranma, looked over his shoulder as their friend flew into the air as Ryoko waved her hand. Then they gasped as the girl flopped into the middle of the lake.  
  
"We have to save her!" Venus exclaimed.  
  
"I'll get her out, you three see if you can slow Ryoko down." Ranma said as he stepped over to the waters edge, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. He turned around to see Ayeka holding him back.  
  
"You and the two Scouts go and help, I'll get the girl out of the lake. I don't think I'll be able to help out against Ryoko when she's in that state. I barely even managed to help stop the other one and this just might be the original. We can already tell she's stronger than the other one as well."  
  
"I don't know…" Ranma began, he was a little worried about Mercury being out there in the water. He shook his head. "Can you get her out?"  
  
"No problem, just stop Ryoko."  
  
Venus gazed at the lake and tried to tell where her friend was, but she couldn't see anything. "Ayeka is right. Look over there, Ryoko is going after Sailor Moon now. We have to protect her above all else."  
  
Ranma nodded. "Let's go!"  
  
The three ran off along the edge of the lake and Ayeka watched them for a second before she sighed. Then she gazed out over the lake, looked around, and used her Juraian power to fly out over the lake. She used her little logs to form a barrier around her and headed below the surface of the lake.  
  
She had never used her powers in this way before, but she could survive full vacuum outside a space ship with this bubble so she wasn't too worried. Ryoko would have been the best one to save her though. She didn't even need to form a bubble to move around in space.  
  
**********  
  
Growling in frustration as he ran, Ranma reached up and ripped what was left of his cape off. The girls could really tell how much the uniform resembled the outfits worn by Beryl's Generals now. They ignored the bad memories this brought up and continued to run along side him. Ranma tapped the side of his visor, but it wasn't working anymore, and shook his head.  
  
"I can't get the visor to work so I'm not sure where anyone is." He told them.  
  
"That's alright." Jupiter told him and ran a little closer. Visions of a naked Ranma running through the smoke appeared in her mind. She nearly stumbled and fell as they turned somewhat perverted, but she didn't complain either. The longer she was around Ranma the more she liked him, so it wasn't all too bad.  
  
Venus, who was lagging behind a bit, just blushed and hoped no one figured out what she was thinking about. To distract herself, she thought about Sailor Moon. Once they found her they would have to fight Ryoko, so she started to plan ahead. She was just lucky she could focus on two things at once or she would have been in trouble.  
  
"I hate to admit this, but I'm pushing my limits now." Ranma told them. "We need a way to stop Ryoko no matter what and now that she's after Moon we have to hurry."  
  
"I think I might know of a way." Venus said as an idea occurred to her. "My heart chain and one of Sailor Moon's attacks can be combined, she hasn't used it in a while, but I think it will work if I can keep Ryoko from moving around."  
  
"That might work." Jupiter admitted. She was only a few feet behind them, but every now and then she would shake her head, glance at Ranma, and then look away before anyone noticed her. 'What the hell is wrong with me?' She wondered to herself.  
  
"I have two special attacks I can pull off as well and they don't' depend on magic reserves." Ranma told them. 'Even then, pulling them off might be a problem if I over extend myself.' He thought to himself.  
  
"This is only your second major fight Ranma. There's nothing to worry about, we always win." Venus grinned at him.  
  
"Yeah." Jupiter agreed, and decided not to tell Ranma about the times they were captured during a fight. Like when Rubius had hung them on crosses inside his ship a couple years back, or when they had all died at the hands of the Doom and Gloom Girls before that, and then there was Galaxia of course. She hated to think of those times.  
  
Ranma and the Scouts, using their enhanced speed, managed to run around the edge of the lake in a couple of minutes. Then they raced across the open field beside the lake and towards the house. They made sure that the only people that could see them coming were Washuu and Katsuhito.  
  
Both of them were watching for any sign of an attack. Katsuhito waved them over when he saw them. Ranma considered if for a second, but his link with Sailor Moon told him that he had to get to her as soon as he could. She was still in control, but she was frightened out of her mind as well. The mixed feelings were driving him nuts.  
  
He slowed to a stop and let the girls catch their breath. "Sailor Moon just ran into the forest. I'm going after her. Maybe I can sneak up on Ryoko and give her a chance to use that attack you just mentioned. You two keep an eye out for the clone, it should have gotten her ahead of us."  
  
"You'll need me to come with you for the plan to work Ranma." Venus reminded him.  
  
"Naw, I think I can find a way to hold her in place for a few seconds so Moon can hit her. Get over there and check on Mars and Mercury. Catch up with me once you do that. It will also give us an advantage if we stagger out attacks." Ranma explained.  
  
"I don't know Ranma…" Venus said hesitantly. He brain was telling her one thing and her hormones were trying to start up a party in other areas. A vision of a naked Ranma flashed across her mind again and she shuddered.  
  
"Come on Venus, let's go and check on Mars real quick." Jupiter told her.  
  
"Why? Moon's in trouble."  
  
Jupiter grabbed her arm and started to drag her towards the house. "Ranma is going after her." She hissed.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
Before they could say anything else, Ranma hunched over and vanished from sight, using the Umisen-Ken technique. They watched for a second and were surprised when they didn't even seen tracks in the grass leading off after Sailor Moon and Ryoko.  
  
Venus grumbled and looked at Jupiter. "I've never seen him do that before."  
  
"Come on, the quicker we check on Mars the better, I don't want to be too far behind him."  
  
"Washuu is looking after her and Ayeka is getting Mercury, we need to help Sailor Moon right now!" She snapped at Jupiter.  
  
"I know, but I also needed to get away from him for a few seconds." Jupiter confessed and blushed a little.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I can't get the vision of him running around naked out of my head and it's driving me crazy."  
  
"Work around it! We need to go and help Moon; we can lust after him at the same time."  
  
"Heads up!"  
  
They looked up just as Ayeka landed next to them with Sailor Mercury in her arms. "This girl weighs more than I thought." She said.  
  
"Is she okay?" Jupiter asked.  
  
"I think so, but I wanted to let Washuu look at her as soon as possible." Ayeka told them. Mercury didn't look to good, her uniform was soaking wet and they could even see through it in several places, which meant that it was soaked clear through to the skin. Even her powers over water didn't get her this wet.  
  
"Let's get Mars to help us then, she should be up by now, so lets hurry." Jupiter said.  
  
"This doesn't feel right." Venus insisted. She shook her head and gazed off after the general direction that Ranma had gone.  
  
"We just need to be quick, the more fire power we have the better." Jupiter explained.  
  
Katsuhito walked over to them as they entered the front yard. "Are you girls alright? Where's Ranma, I saw him with you a little while ago."  
  
"He went to help Sailor Moon." Venus muttered.  
  
"We wanted to check on Mars and Mercury before she went after him." Jupiter said.  
  
"That girl was quite good at dodging Ryoko's blasts." Katsuhito said with a grin. "At first I thought she was doing it on accident, but then everything missed her by the same small margin and I knew she was doing it on purpose."  
  
"Huh?" Venus asked.  
  
"Moon has been training with Ranma for several weeks Venus, you know that, she's gotten quite good at avoiding those tickle attacks of his. That's also why I'm not too worried at the moment, but I don't want to wait to long."  
  
Dumbfounded, Venus realized that she had completely forgotten about Usagi's training. She had too much naked Ranma on her mind to remember such little details like that. "Crap, I forgot completely about that."  
  
"Sailor Mars inside on the couch if you want to go and talk to her, but I don't think she will be able to help you." Katsuhito told them.  
  
"Thank you." The girls said and headed for the house.  
  
"We've only got a couple of minutes Venus, let's hurry." Jupiter said as they ran.  
  
"Right."  
  
Ayeka was still holding Sailor Mercury on her back and she glanced at Katsuhito. He motioned over at Washuu and she nodded. "Can you take a look at her?"  
  
The red head looked up from her computer and noticed Ayeka for the first   
  
time, glanced up at her hair, then back down. "You have a fish in your hair."  
  
Ayeka blinked. "Um, whatever, what do you want me to do with her?"  
  
Laughing, Washuu plucked the fish away, tossed it to Tenchi and snapped her fingers. Sailor Mercury vanished in a burst of light and a portal appeared next to Washuu. "Not to worry, I'll take good care of her. I just sent her to my lab, so I should have her fixed up good as new in a jiff."  
  
"Do you need any help?" Katsuhito asked.  
  
"Why would I need that?"  
  
"Well we have to look after Sailor Mars as well, plus you mentioned that you needed to be here to get the proper readings on Ryoko."  
  
Washuu nodded slowly and started to think. "I'll just have my computer examine Mercury then, Mars just has a concussion, and I've got Ryoko covered. There we go, all solved, I'm the greatest ever!" She exclaimed and started to laugh.  
  
Sailor Jupiter and Venus looked into the house through the hole Mars had made. They noticed that most of the mess had already been cleaned up and that someone had placed an Ofuda on Mihoshi's head to knock her out. They recognized Mars' work instantly. The blonde-haired woman was sitting in a nearby chair with her hands and feet tied up just in case she woke up.  
  
Sprawled on the couch, Mars had a wet rag over her forehead and it looked like she had a fever. Sasami was kneeling next to her preparing to change out the rag with a fresh one. Someone had also placed a bandage around Mars' head. "How's she doing?" Jupiter asked.  
  
"Better." Mars mumbled before Sasami could reply. The little girl shrugged, picked up her bowl, and headed for the kitchen.  
  
"Don't do anything foolish."  
  
"No problem, my head hurts too much to move."  
  
"You're awake?" Jupiter asked in surprise.  
  
"Barely, my head hurts and I can't move around very much."  
  
"Washuu says she has a concussion from flying through wall head first." Sasami said as she came out of the kitchen with a tray and a bowl of soup. She sat them down near Sailor Mars and handed her the bowl and a spoon. "Here eat this, I put some medicine in it to help the concussion. Little Washuu said it would help quite a bit."  
  
"Thanks." Mars said, then looked over at Jupiter. "Where are the others?"  
  
"In trouble." Jupiter muttered. "I was hoping you would be up and around to help us."  
  
"You got it…" Mars said and tried to sit up. "No concussion is going to slow me down."  
  
"No!" Sasami yelled and pushed her back down. "You can't move around for at least two days!"  
  
Sailor Mars winced and collapsed back against the couch and glared at the little blue haired girl. "My friend is in trouble!"  
  
"You need your rest."  
  
Mars sighed and stopped struggling against the little girl. "What happened to Mercury?"  
  
"Ryoko tossed her about fifty feet in the air and she landed in the lake." Venus said. "She's water logged."  
  
"At least she was in her element." Mars muttered and held her head in pain. "Every time I move my head I see these little spots and I get dizzy. I hate this concussion already. I'm useless!" She yelled and winced.  
  
Sasami sighed and didn't say anything as she handed her the bowl of soup. With a bit of reluctance, Mars took the bowl and started to eat it as the girls watched. "You said there was medicine in this?"  
  
"Yep."  
  
"I hope it works quick, I can't just lay here while my friends fight that monster."  
  
"I won't let you leave until you are over the concussion." Sasami told her. "And don't think I can't make you."  
  
Mars sighed and finished off the soup. "I'm stuck here, go and help Sailor Moon."  
  
"I was about to leave anyway." Jupiter said and motioned for Venus to follow her. "Get well as soon as you can."  
  
"No problem." Mars called after them."  
  
As they walked away Venus looked at Jupiter. "She won't be any help in that condition; Ranma and Moon have quite a head start on us as well"  
  
"I think your right, I thought Rei would be in better shape." Jupiter said. "Let's go and find them. They can't have gotten too far in just a few minutes."  
  
"As fast as we move? They could be miles from here by now." Venus snapped. "We'll have to take a guess, where to you suppose they are right now?"  
  
"I'm not sure, but we need to hurry if we want to catch up with Ranma."  
  
The two girls nodded and broke into a run. They raced across the grass and vanished into the trees next to the lake less than a second later. From   
  
inside the house Tenchi watched them speed off and he wondered if they would make it in time. He had seen Ryoko like this before and she needed special handling.  
  
He made sure he had the Tenchi-ken in his pocket as he came down stairs and saw something weird. Sasami had an Ofuda stuck to her head and she was asleep at Mihoshi's feet. There was no sign of Sailor Mars except for a rag on the floor and an over turned bowl of water. Kneeling down he reached for the strip of paper on her head and it shocked him.  
  
"Grandpa will have to deal with these." He said and walked over to the hole in the wall. "Grandpa!"  
  
"What is it Tenchi?"  
  
"Sailor Mars is gone and she used one of those Ofuda things to put Mihoshi and Sasami to sleep. I can't remove them."  
  
"Alright, they need a special touch…" Katsuhito said and turned to head into the house, but an alarm suddenly on Washuu's computer and he stopped to see what was going on.  
  
The red headed scientist tapped a button on her keyboard and a second holographic screen appeared on top of the other two and angled towards her so she didn't have to strain to see it. She read the data, started to frown after a couple of seconds, and started another scan with her sensors. "That other reading we were discussing earlier, the other person that was possessed? It seems to be moving again, this time it's heading after Sailor Moon and Ryoko."  
  
"We need to help out." Tenchi said as he walked out of the house and heard her.  
  
Katsuhito nodded. "We haven't had a chance to join in the fight yet either."  
  
"What are we going to do about the fires? They are starting to get out of control." Tenchi reminded them as he looked in the direction of the multiple fires created by Ryoko's wild blasts.  
  
"So many problems to deal with." Washuu said. "I'll take care of the fires by drenching them in lake water. As for the other problem, you two will have to take care of it."  
  
"How?"  
  
Washuu nodded and tapped a key on her keyboard. A swirling hole appeared above Katsuhito for a brief second and he suddenly found himself holding what looked like an elaborate sword hilt. Washuu pointed at it. "That is an energy sword I developed a long time ago, but never really had a way to use it properly. It works like the Tenchi Ken, but can also be used by anyone   
  
with even the slightest access to Jurian energies."  
  
Katsuhito activated the sword by twisting the base and spun it around a few times to get a feel for the blade. It had a red blade that cut through the air like a knife. "I haven't used one of these in quite some time."  
  
"I figure you can put it to the best use since Tenchi now has your old sword."  
  
"Excellent, lets go then. Tenchi, you and I will handle the other person that got possessed."  
  
"It's not a person." Ayeka spoke up. "I saw it while I was running around out there, it's a cat of some kind and it is huge."  
  
"A cat?"  
  
Ayeka nodded. "Yeah, it's about eight feet high at its shoulder, all black, and the length of a truck."  
  
"That's a big cat." Tenchi muttered and gulped.  
  
"Sounds like this cat I saw on Rigell that one time I visited." Katsuhito muttered to himself.  
  
"Well just be careful when you fight it, those claws are strong enough to use them to cut down trees." Ayeka said.  
  
"We'll be careful." Tenchi said and concentrated for a second so he could assume his Jurian battle armor.  
  
"Good luck you two, I'll monitor both fights and let you know what is going on." Washuu said as she tossed something to Katsuhito. "Oh, take this with you as well."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"A communicator and a portable sensor, while you have it I'll be able to monitor the situation much easier. It's set up to pierce through the interference that has been 'futzing' up my other sensors."  
  
Katsuhito placed it inside his shirt and made sure he still had his new sword. "Come along Tenchi, we need to get into position to cut that cat off before it can cause any more damage."  
  
Nodding, Tenchi moved after his grandfather as he ran into the trees. "What did you have in mind?"  
  
"I've spent the last few years teaching you how to simply fight, but I've never had the opportunity to teach you how to be tricky."  
  
"Tricky?" Tenchi asked.  
  
"Yes, cunning, guile, and dirty tricks that can be used to help you win a fight."  
  
"What did you have in mind."  
  
"Remember when you stole the keys to Ryoko's cave?"  
  
Tenchi nodded, already knowing what the old man was going to say.  
  
"That impressed me and it proves you do know how to use cunning every now and then."  
  
"This is what I have in mind…" Katsuhito started as they entered the forest.  
  
A few minutes later Tenchi couldn't help but be a little impressed.  
  
**********  
  
She didn't really have a destination in mind as she ran through the trees at a break neck speed. All she really wanted to do was get away and make sure she wasn't in the line of fire, but whenever she looked over her shoulder, she would see Ryoko flying along above her. She weaved around a grove of trees and suddenly changed directions, curving off to the left.  
  
Up above her Ryoko missed the turn and lost sight of Sailor Moon for a brief second. Considering the girl was blonde, wearing a blue skirt, and bright red boots she was a little surprised. She slowed to a stop and hovered in the air for a second. Holding out her hand the jewel on he wrist started to glow.  
  
Suddenly she started to fire multiple beams of energy down into the trees down below. At first, all was quiet, but then some of the energy rained down on a section of bushes and Moon yelped out as she dodged. She rolled to her feet, and rook off running again.  
  
"I have you now!"  
  
Moon looked behind her as she ran through the trees and she had a front row seat as all three jewels on Ryoko's body flared up. The air was suddenly full of massive energy blasts. These made the one's she had just been firing look puny by comparison. They weren't any bigger than the others, but they packed a bigger punch as they blew up.  
  
The world exploded around Sailor Moon as the first blast ripped a giant hole in the side of the mountain. She screamed as trees, bushes and the very ground around her suddenly ceased to exist. Weaving and dodging as best she could she veered off to the side and changed her direction, side stepping a couple of blasts before they could touch her.  
  
In the midst of the destruction, she stopped running, doubled back a little bit, and hid behind a tree. From there she watched to see if Ryoko would fly over and miss her completely. She stayed as far away from the fire and destruction as she could without giving herself away, but she knew that it wouldn't take to long for it to make it's way over to her.  
  
Ryoko stopped flying and flew a little higher into the air as she started to look around for any sign of the girl. She made a mental note not to toss around such big blasts, they looked great, but they managed to obscure any signs of her prey.  
  
She flew over several areas, still saying above the trees, and cursed under her breath. These puny half wits were turning into pests that just didn't know when to die. It was like they had nine lives or something and they just kept coming back for more.  
  
The only sounds that could be heard for the next couple of minutes, was the fire as it raged through the trees and filled the air with more smoke. Ryoko cocked her head to the side, the jewel on her neck flared for a second, and her eyes lit up. Her eyes quickly started to scan over the trees below her until she came to one spot and saw the back heel of a red boot.  
  
"Got you!" Ryoko yelled as she teleported and grabbed Sailor Moon by her throat. She grinned and started to squeeze.  
  
"Ack!" Moon gasped and grabbed Ryoko's wrist.  
  
Then Ryoko slammed her against the tree a few times. "How are dodging all those blasts?!" Ryoko snarled. "I'm aiming right at your back and they aren't hitting you!"  
  
"Y-you're a bad shot?" Sailor Moon stuttered out.  
  
Ryoko's eyes narrowed and started to glow once more as she leaned forward and glared right into Sailor Moon's face. "You will suffer for that."  
  
The fist comes in from out of nowhere, but as it hit Ryoko across the jaw she is caught completely by surprise. It's so strong that she is knocked off her feet and is sent tumbling for several feet. She crawled to her knees and shook her head a few times before looking up.  
  
Moon staggers away from the tree and over to Sailor Jupiter. She rubs her fist a little bit and glares down at Ryoko. Then, to completely ruin the moment, Sailor Moon grabs Jupiter and bear hugs her.  
  
"Whaaaaa! I thought I was done for!" She wails.  
  
"Well she won't hurt you now." Jupiter declares and moves away from Sailor Moon. "Now to make sure this scum doesn't get a chance to hurt you anymore."  
  
Sighing in frustration, Ryoko climbs to her feet and rubs her jaw a bit. "That was a good hit, but it didn't accomplish much did it?"  
  
Jupiter takes a fighting stance. "It stopped you from hurting my friend, that's all that matters to me."  
  
Ryoko just laughs. "You have so much to learn."  
  
"Bring it on, witch."  
  
Ryoko floats into the air with a smirk. "Alright, I'll play with you instead. The other one was beaten anyway, so there's nothing to worry about there."  
  
"I'll make you pay for that!"  
  
"Better control that temper, or you might get in trouble before you even begin."  
  
Growling, Sailor Jupiter held her hands apart and electricity started for arc between her hands. "I'll show you who's in trouble!"  
  
Raising her palm up, Ryoko continued to grin as the area around Jupiter suddenly filled with little balls of floating energy. "You've seen what I   
  
can do and you are still using those useless attacks."  
  
"JUPITER THUNDER DRAGON!"  
  
"Oh, something new." Ryoko mutters as a dragon formed from lighting forms out of Jupiter's hands.  
  
It flew out of her hands like giant swarm of electricity and hurtles towards Ryoko. At the same instant, Sailor Venus staggered out of the woods a few yards away gasping for air. She stumbles over to Sailor Moon, looks her in the eye, and grabs her by the arms. "You!"  
  
"Me?" Moon gasps. There are leaves sticking out of Venus' hair.  
  
"Let's go while Jupiter holds her off." Venus says, grabbed her hand, and they run off into the woods.  
  
"Wawawa!" Moon mutters. "We have to help her…"  
  
"We need to get away from her right now." Venus explains. "She's got a plan."  
  
Sailor Moon nodded as they headed deeper into the woods and away from the fire.  
  
The Jupiter Thunder Dragon slamed into Ryoko's shield as she held her hand up to block it. For a brief second Ryoko can't see anything, but she's not worried, because the energy is harmlessly vanishing after it hits the shield. Then just as the attack stops and she dropped her arm, a large burning log flies at her from out of nowhere and slammed into her head.  
  
"Got you!" Jupiter yells as Ryoko slammed into the ground and glared up at Jupiter.  
  
Getting to her feet, she turned and blasted the burning log to splinters then started walking towards Jupiter. "I'll make sure you die a slow death girl, all of you. You could barely fight my clone, what makes you think you can fight me any better?"  
  
Jupiter just grins, holds up her hand and yells. "FLOWER HURICANE!"*  
  
A literal hurricane of flower petals fill the air and swarm around Ryoko. She gasped as the pressure around starts to increase and push her back. She crossed her arms in front of her face and tries to see through the storm, but for several seconds she is completely blind. As the attack dies down she relaxed and looked around.  
  
The brown haired Scout is standing about forty yards away and she jumped up and down a few times and made a rude gesture. "You're way too slow Monster Woman!" Then Jupiter ran into the trees and vanishes.  
  
"AGHAAAAAAAAAAA!!" Ryoko screamed as a red hot rage fills her and she fires a pair of energy blasts after Jupiter. Instead of getting Jupiter all they do is blow up a couple of trees. "I'm going to get you!"  
  
"Gotta catch me first!" Jupiter's voice echoed from out of the woods.  
  
Ryoko launched after Jupiter even as the obliterated trees are still raining down around the area. Then she sees a flash of red and a Scout steps out of the trees, holds up her hands, and yells out an attack name.  
  
"Burning Mandela!" Mars yelled and launches dozens of fire rings right into Ryoko's chest.  
  
Even as the attack slammed into her, Ryoko had to wonder where in the heck she had gone so wrong.  
  
So, surrounded in fire, she flew back and slammed into the ground. She bounced a few times and rolled to a stop and just laid there for a second.  
  
Then a bright light flared around her body and the flames are instantly put out. Muttering a curse, she sits up and punched the ground a few times in frustration. She doesn't even have to look around to know that Mars is gone as well. The attack had been a delaying tactic. She had used them on several occasions herself.  
  
Standing up, she took a second to make sure her clothing looked good and heard something. She turns and looked into the woods as Ranma walked into sight as he passed a couple of large bushes. He's carrying a large branch on his shoulder like a bat, stops about ten feet away from her, and smiled. "Hey, long time no see. I see you are having a few problems? I thought you were all powerful now?"  
  
Ryoko snorted. "You people are like cockroaches aren't you? I take one of you down or run you off and another one pops up?"  
  
"You sound disappointed." He said.  
  
"Why aren't you fighting my clone?"  
  
"She went looking for you after she lost a few pieces of herself." Ranma said with a shrug. "Or she ran off like a scared dog, which ever explanation you like better." Ranma said and shifted the branch from one shoulder to the other.  
  
"You don't really think you can fight me and win do you?"  
  
Ranma shrugged. "As far as I'm concerned I've already won. You don't have what it takes to defeat any of us. We also out number you six to one."  
  
"We've been fighting all this time and all of you have yet to stop me."  
  
"You can't stop us either." Ranma said. "The Scouts are making a fool out of you and you just keep letting them do it."  
  
Growling, Ryoko glared at him. "You are really pushing your luck."  
  
"Well, I guess I'll have to try a little harder." Ranma snapped and threw the branch at her like a dagger.  
  
It was unexpected move, but Ryoko wasn't all the surprised either. So she teleported out of the way and reappeared a few feet away and formed another ball of energy. "Is that the best you can do?" She sneered, and then noticed that Ranma wasn't even there anymore. She blinked, looked around in confusion, and realized that he'd just ran off when she was in between teleports. Just like the girls had done a little while ago. "You bastard!"  
  
"Gotta catch me first, doofus!" Ranma's voice yelled out from the forest several hundred yards away.  
  
Seething mad, she flew up above the trees and started to look around for movement. Then she looked to the side just as her clone appeared beside her and looked in the direction of the forest. "What do you think they have in mind? It's quite obvious they want us to follow them."  
  
"True, and I don't feel like falling for it, but I'm not sure what they have in mind."  
  
"He's tricky too."  
  
"I can't believe he's giving us this much trouble."  
  
"Bah, I don't care about that. I just want to have some fun and off a few of these idiots. I'll be happy so long as I have some fun."  
  
"Well yeah, but he's very good at dodging."  
  
"Running away you mean."  
  
The clone shrugged.  
  
Ryoko spotted something and pointed over to the shrine. "They are heading for that little waterfall over by the shrine."  
  
"Want to attack them from two different directions? Or just blast them out of existence?"  
  
"I'd rather play with them some more."  
  
The clone smiled. "Oh yeah, that will be fun too."  
  
"How do we keep from falling into their trap?"  
  
"I think we need to take them down one at a time."  
  
Ryoko nodded. "Leave the boy for last, I want to make him suffer for all this aggravation."  
  
"No problem."  
  
"Alright, you go that way and try to circle around them."  
  
"Sure."  
  
**********  
  
After ditching Ryoko, Ranma quickly caught up with the girls. They were standing around and he realized that Mars was looking worse and worse as he got closer. Her face was whiter than normal and Jupiter was helping her stay on her feet. They looked up as he headed for them. He could tell that Sailor Moon was quite worried.  
  
"Are you feeling up to this?" He asked Mars.  
  
"I keep telling you, I'm fine." She growled.  
  
"You should have stayed at the house, all you're doing is making things worse."  
  
"I will survive." She snapped.  
  
"Mars, he's right, lets get you back to the house. You're going to hurt yourself if you keep this up." Jupiter told her. "You can barely stand."  
  
"I'm staying!"  
  
Ranma glanced at Sailor Moon and she just looked worried.  
  
Then the Scout of fire shook off Sailor Jupiter's support and staggered over to a tree. "I will not lay around while all of you fight that monster."  
  
"I've got a temporary way to help then." Ranma said and the girls looked at him. "I've been hit in the head so many times and been taken to this doctor that I know, that I've become almost immune to concussions."  
  
Before the girls could say anything he stepped forward and jabbed his finger into Mar's stomach, spun her around, and did three others at the base of her spine. "There, you should…"  
  
"You jerk!" Mars yelled and punched him in the jaw.  
  
He stumbled back a few feet as the girls swarmed around Mars and glared at him. "What?"  
  
"What did you do that for?!"  
  
"It's a way to alleviate a concussion, but only for a short time." Ranma told her as he rubbed his jaw.  
  
For a brief second Mars looked confused, then she realized that her headache was gone and that she wasn't dizzy anymore. "It's gone?"  
  
Ranma nodded. "For about an hour, then you are going to simply fall down and sleep for the next twenty four hours. So you need to make sure you are safe when it wears off."  
  
"So we have an hour to beat Ryoko?" Sailor Moon asked.  
  
"Yeah, or we need to get Mars back to the house where it's safe." Ranma explained.  
  
"Then I say we continue with the plan. We've already set it in motion and she should be following us by now." Venus said.  
  
"She shook off an attack that I've seen rip a Droid to pieces. I'm amazed that she's is this strong." Sailor Jupiter muttered.  
  
"I hit her twice and she just blocked it." Mars said, still marvelling at her clear head.  
  
"We all took a shot at her, so I think she will be too mad to think straight by now. She was pounding on the ground after Mars attacked her and ran off. I took advantage of that and added my own attack to the mix."  
  
"Good, then lets get into place, I'm positive that we only have one shot at this." Sailor Moon said. "Do all of you know where you have to be?"  
  
They nodded, except for Ranma, who wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. She turned to him. "Ranma, I need you to help the others out, they are going to try and keep Ryoko on one spot. The best place to try is that water fall over there."  
  
"Sure, she tends to hold back from attacking whenever she takes a good hit. It's usually several seconds or so."  
  
"Just blast her until she can't move anymore." Venus told him. "It always works."  
  
He sweat dropped. "Um…sure."  
  
Then the girls scattered, each one of them heading in a different direction, but still in the general direction of the waterfall. Ranma noticed that they weren't even trying to hide anymore. They wanted Ryoko to notice them now that they were ready to take her down.  
  
As he was about to go himself, he sensed something and looked to the side as Katsuhito and Tenchi came out of the trees and ran over. He also noticed that they both looked like they were expecting an attack at any second. "You two need to be careful, Ryoko is nearby."  
  
The old man shook his head. "We know, did you know that there was a second person that was possessed like Ryoko?"  
  
"No." Ranma said. "Who was it?"  
  
"We don't know, but it's headed this way. Washuu's computer picked it and traced its route right to Sailor Moon."  
  
"She's about to attack Ryoko with something that might remove the thing possessing Ryoko."  
  
"We need to protect her at all costs and stop the other one." Tenchi said.  
  
"What about that other girl, Ayeka?"  
  
"She's back at the house helping out Washuu and making sure Sasami and Mihoshi don't get into trouble."  
  
Ranma nodded, that was what he had expected when she didn't follow after Jupiter and Venus earlier. "Do you two think you can fight that other one?"  
  
"Easily." Katsuhito said.  
  
Tenchi shrugged.  
  
He wished his visor was working, it gave him good tactical advice when the situation changed. Now he would just have to go with the flow and see what happened. That was kind of normal for him though, so he wasn't to worried. "Let the Scouts put their plan into action over by the water fall, the three of us can handle that other one while the girls deal with Ryoko."  
  
"Are they really strong enough?"  
  
Shrugging, Ranma turned as he sensed Ryoko off in the distance. "Ryoko is coming, she'll be here in just a few minutes, you two go and take cover."  
  
"What about you?"  
  
"I'm the bait." Ranma said with a smirk. "Try to alert us when the other one is close."  
  
"No problem."  
  
Ranma bent over and stood perfectly still as he faded from sight an vanished. He knew that Ryoko wasn't about to fall right into the Scouts trap, she was to smart for that. She had learned how to defend against his other attacks almost as soon as he used them. That was why they had been   
  
tossing long range energy blasts at each other.  
  
Now that things were so close to finally ending he wanted to make sure their plan worked. While cloaked in the Umisen-ken his senses seemed to work a little differently. He could tell that there were two Ryoko's running around out there.  
  
He'd been wondering what happened to her, now he would have to lead both of them into the same trap. Things were getting a lot harder than expected, but if one of them fell for it, then the two of them surely would. They were the same person after all.  
  
"Time to see if they are still letting their guard down." He muttered to himself as he ran through the trees like a silent wraith. Above him, about fifty feet in the air, Ryoko was flying towards the waterfall in the distance.  
  
She was heading right where Ranma wanted her to go, so he decided to focus on the other one instead. Ranma focused in on her, changed direction, and crossed the distance between them in just a few seconds. She was only about half a mile away.  
  
So he spotted her relatively easily. He came to a stop beside a tree and cursed under his breath. She was hiding in the branches of a tree and looking down on Sailor Mars as she moved through the trees.  
  
He watched the two of them for a second and there was no sign that Mars knew she was in danger. Then as Ryoko formed a ball of energy between her hands Ranma shot forward, picking a branch up off the ground.  
  
Ryoko didn't yell as she thrust her hands forward and fired her blast at Mars. As he sped across the distance between them, Ranma threw the stick with his full strength. Mars saw this and turned and noticed him as he ran. He could see the confused look on her face.  
  
Then she looked right up at the blast as it headed for her.  
  
"Move!" Ranma yelled, but his stick hit the energy blast before she could even think of dodging.  
  
The explosion swept across the area, blowing leaves off of trees and sending a large ball of fire in all directions. He was a bit surprised that she didn't see Ryoko's attack, but he knew from first hand experience that even when the pressure points were used, it was still a bit hard to think on   
  
your feet.  
  
He grabbed her around the waist, lifted her off the ground, and jumped into the air as the fire washed over where she had been standing. Cradling her in his arms he flipped around in mid air, bounced off a tree, and made his way through the forest for several seconds before he landed.  
  
"Are you all right?" He asked her as he sat her down on the ground. She was shaking quite a bit.  
  
"How…" She started to ask.  
  
"I was tracking Ryoko when I noticed her clone in this area, I guess she was trying to take you out before you could do anything."  
  
She looked back in the direction of the attack and frowned. "I can't sense her. The other Ryoko is over there though." She said and pointed off towards the falls.  
  
"Me and Ayeka removed those power jewels from this one a little while ago, so if you are sensing energy levels, then I think she might be a little hard to see."  
  
"How did you track her?"  
  
"I was looking for her." Ranma explained, leaving out a few details.  
  
"We didn't take her into account when we made this plan."  
  
"We just need to get the two of them in the same place instead of just one of them." Ranma said with a shrug. "It can't be that much harder."  
  
"Nothing bothers you does it?" She snapped.  
  
"Not really, it's just a fight." He said with a smirk, but then turned to look over his shoulder as Ryoko flew into sight and glared down at them.  
  
"You!"  
  
Ranma waved at her. "You missed again!"  
  
The look of shock on Mars' face as he said that is impossible to describe.  
  
"Die pervert!" Ryoko screams and her eyes glow brightly as she launched a barrage of energy blasts fire from her hands. At her lowered power level, the attack wasn't as dangerous as it could have been. That didn't stop it from blowing large holes in the ground, scorching trees, and making Ranma and Sailor Mars run for cover.  
  
"You idiot!" Mars yelled.  
  
In mid dive, Ranma formed a ball of Ki and hurled it at Ryoko, then landed on his shoulder, rolled, and came to his feet as the blast hit her. Just like Ryoko's blast, it didn't have much power behind it, just enough to get her attention. She kept her position in the air, took a second to shake off the blast.  
  
"I'll make you pay for that!"  
  
"MARS FLAME SNIPER!"  
  
The clone spun around just in time to take an arrow of fire right to the chest. Mars wasn't as exhausted as Ranma was, so her attack had a lot more power behind it. It exploded into a giant fireball and sent her crashing to the ground, taking out several trees before she came to a stop.  
  
Mars turned and smirked at Ranma. "That was easy."  
  
"You do know she's going to get back up don't you?"  
  
She shrugged. "Better than insulting them into a blind rage."  
  
With his hands behind his head, he looked over at Ryoko's unmoving form and shrugged. "Whatever works."  
  
She glared at him. "Don't make me deck you again."  
  
He just grinned at her.  
  
Ryoko growled as she sat up and took a second to regenerate the areas that were damaged by the attack. She glanced over at the two of them and realized that they were waiting for her to get back up. "Great, now I'm getting predictable."  
  
"C'mon toots, we don't have all day." Ranma yelled.  
  
Mars gave him a weird look again. "Do you ever try not to piss your opponents off?"  
  
"Where would the fun be in that?"  
  
With a heave, Ryoko tossed a fallen tree to the side, stood up, and rose into the air. She watched Ranma and Sailor Mars for a second before she raised her hand up and hundreds of little spheres of light appeared around them.  
  
Ranma glanced at the little spheres and his dangers sense started to warn him of impending danger. "This is new."  
  
"She hadn't used this before?"  
  
"No."  
  
"This is why you don't piss off your opponents."  
  
"Humph! Just run for it." He said and took off at a dead run into the trees.  
  
Barely a second later Mars took off after him and in the back ground behind them, the whole area went up in a massive explosion. They could hear Ryoko screaming after them, but they couldn't see her because a wave of destruction was following after them. Trees simply vanished form existence when the wave hit them.  
  
"Where is she getting the strength to do this?!" Mars yelled as they ran.  
  
"She's the clone of the other Ryoko, so I think she's drawing power from the other one."  
  
"This isn't good!"  
  
"This is great; we're getting her to go in the right direction after all!" Ranma yelled back.  
  
"That is not a good enough reason to get blown up!"  
  
"Not to worry! It's dying down anyway!" Ranma said as they finally got away from the wave. The only thing left was a bit of wind and dust that made Mars's skirt and bows flutter around.  
  
Ranma cocked his head to the side and tried to sense the clone. "She hasn't moved from where we were and I can barely feel her power level."  
  
"I still can't sense her." Mars muttered.  
  
"I'm used to doing this against my opponents."  
  
"Hey check it out." Mars said and pointed behind them.  
  
Ranma looked around and saw that they were about ten feet from the river that led away form the falls. "Great, how much closer do we need to get?"  
  
"Close enough to see the falls."  
  
"So a coupe hundred more yards."  
  
"Just about."  
  
Whipping out her communicator, Mars called the others and let them know they were all right and near the Falls. Ranma didn't pay any attention as she checked in, he was to busy watching for Ryoko. He could feel her heading their way, though at a much slower rate of speed.  
  
"How long until she gets here?" Mars asked.  
  
"About five minutes at her current speed, I think she wore herself out firing that blast."  
  
"The others are all ready in position, we need to get moving so that everything will be ready."  
  
"Did they have any problems?"  
  
"No, they haven't even seen Ryoko. They didn't know about the clone though, and I got them caught up on the situation. They were about to come and look around to see if anyone had been caught in the explosion."  
  
"Good, we should be there in a few minutes." Ranma said as they started to walk through the trees.  
  
"I can sense the other Ryoko, but she is over by the falls. I wonder why the others can't see her."  
  
"She might be hidden in a tree, under water, or behind the falls themselves. She can do quite a bit. If any of us were normal people we would have died in the first attack." Ranma said, then he noticed that Mars was looking a little pale again. "The pressure point is wearing off."  
  
"It's only been a few minutes."  
  
"Actually it's been about twenty minutes since I gave it to you, we have been doing a lot of running around."  
  
"You said an hour!"  
  
Ranma thought about it for a second. "I think your enhanced healing might be doing what it can to heal your body. That includes removing the pressure point's effects."  
  
Mars growled and started to walk faster. "Let's move."  
  
He stopped and looked behind them for a second and saw Ryoko rise above the top of the trees. It didn't take her long to find them. "Here comes Ryoko."  
  
"We aren't close enough."  
  
"Then we run. She isn't thinking clearly right now and should follow after us." Ranma said and started to jog.  
  
"AGHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"  
  
"She spotted us."  
  
"You think?!" Mars yelled.  
  
"So we have to say hello!" Ranma yelled.  
  
"What?!" Mars screamed.  
  
Ranma slid to a stop, held up both hands as they flared with Ki. "DOUBLE MOKO TASKABISHA!"  
  
In the split second that she had to react, Ryoko spun in mid air and let both blasts pass by her harmlessly. She laughed insanely as she closed in on Ranma. She swooped in to teach him who the real fighter was. "I've got you now!"  
  
Her fist connected with his jaw and Ranma didn't have time to even roll with the punch. He grunted in pain as his head snapped back and the force of the blow nearly knocked him off his feet. Still laughing, Ryoko pressed her advantage and fired a quick energy blast right into his chest. This time he slammed into a tree several feet behind him.  
  
"Crap." He muttered and staggered for a second.  
  
Ryoko punched him again, this time knocking him clean off his feet and to the ground. "I knew you couldn't keep it up!"  
  
"RANMA!" Mars yelled.  
  
"Your next girl! Just stay there for a second, I have some trash to take out." Ryoko snapped as she advanced on Ranma.  
  
He kicked out and got her in the stomach, but she just used that to grab onto his leg. "Let's see how you like weird moves."  
  
Half a second later he is lifted into the air and spun around like a top for several seconds before being tossed.  
  
"AKURYOU TAISAN!" **  
  
Spinning around, Ryoko gasped as Sailor Mars fires a stream of fire filled of Ofuda at her. She growled and held up her hand to block the attack, but as it slammed into the shield she realized that she doesn't have any of the jewels left. That means she can't sustain the power needed to form the shield for very long and gasps as it collapses.  
  
The Ofuda filled fire slammed into her and she screams as they start to attach themselves to her. A burning sensation fills her body almost instantly and she can only stand there, frozen in place, as her very self is ripped to shreds. "What is this?!"  
  
"A great distraction." Ranma yells as he grabs her by the arm and throws her into the air above the waterfall. "Mars, hit her with your big attack!"  
  
"MARS FLAME SNIPER!"  
  
In quick succession three Flame Snipers are fired at Ryoko as she sailed above the falls. They home in and explode the instant they hit her with three explosions that take toll on her. Ranma fires his own Ki blast a half a second after Mars fired the last arrow and tagged Ryoko in the lower back.  
  
As the smoke and fire finally recede and they can see again, Ryoko looks like she's been hit by a mountain or two. Her clothes, almost untouched until now, are finally showing burn marks. She has cuts and bruises all over her face and arms and most of her hair is gone. What little is left is still burning as she floated there.  
  
Ranma made sure the clone was in position and glanced at Mars. "She's right where she needs to be, now we make sure she doesn't leave."  
  
"Right."  
  
Then the clone's eyes finally shut and she fell, only to be caught by the other Ryoko. This one looked pissed as she grabbed the clone's arm and made sure she didn't fall into the water below. "Time to reabsorb you I think."  
  
"Sorry…"  
  
"But first I have to take care of something else." Ryoko said as she grabbed the clone with her other hand. Raised her arm into the air and let the jewels on her wrists and neck flare just as she fired a massive blast of energy at Sailor Mars.  
  
"DIE!"  
  
Sailor Mars scrambled out of the way and barely managed to dodge the blast. It landed a few feet behind her and went off practically under her feet. She didn't even have time to yell out before it lifted her off the ground, and tossed at the base of the waterfall where several large rocks jutted out above the surface.  
  
Even before she had a chance to hit the rocks, Ranma ran out to the edge of the water, jumped into the air, and caught her before she had a chance to hit anything.  
  
Above them, still seeing with anger, Ryoko turned to focus a blast on the two of them while the were still in the air. She formed a quick blast of energy and sent it flying at Ranma's exposed back, but he twisted in mid air and dodged it completely.  
  
He landed, placing a foot on one of the rocks at the bottom of the fall and used that to bounce around until he landed on the other side of the water fall with Sailor Mars still cradled in his arms. The instant he landed he took off and ran into the trees just a few yards away.  
  
As Ryoko turned and focused to form another large blast of energy, the jewels glowing brightly, Sailor Venus and Jupiter stepped out of the trees on opposite sides of the waterfall and fired their attacks at the same time. Ryoko thrust her hand forward and formed a full power shield, forming a sphere of energy around her that would be more than enough to withstand the attacks.  
  
"VENUS LOVE AND BEAUTY SHOCK!"  
  
"JUPITER TUNDER DRAGON!"  
  
Still hanging from Ryoko's hand, the Clone could only watch as the Scouts tossed of their attacks. They both knew that the shield could withstand the attacks easily and wondered why they had even tried in the first place. If this was the best trap they could come up with, Ryoko thought they needed more practice.  
  
What neither of them expected was for the two attacks too suddenly combine into one much larger attack in mid air and change direction so that it would come up on her from below. Ryoko just snorted and made the shield stronger at her feet so that she wouldn't have to worry about it.  
  
Then she caught sight of a third scout stepping out from behind some trees in yet another area around the falls. Sailor Moon held her sceptre into the air and it started to glow bright silver. It matched the glow that was forming from within the broach on her chest bow.  
  
"MOON PRINCESS HALIATION!"  
  
The combined attack of the two Inner Scouts slammed into the shield as she tried to increase it's strength and power at the last second. She could feel the power in the attacks and knew that she was in trouble.  
  
"AGHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" She screamed, making the jewels on her body blow brighter and brighter. Then the worst happened and the shield collapsed under the power of the three attacks combined. Energy rushed up from below her and washed over her body from the feet up.  
  
This was enough to stun them, but at the same time Sailor Moon's attack hit them from the side. Ryoko could only gape in shock as the blast hit her, not with any force, but with pure cleansing energy. So pure that it invaded her body and that of the clone and started to purify them both.  
  
From within the forest Ranma and Mars watched as the clone seemed to be vaporized under the contentious assault by Sailor Moon's attack. Once it was started, it would not stop until it was finished. Ryoko's body on the other hand had a different reaction to the cleansing.  
  
Her shadow appeared to be ripped from her body just as the silver energy got so bright they couldn't see her any more. Like a miniature sun, silver light filled the sky around the waterfall for several minutes as Moon strained to keep the attack going. Then after several seconds, Sailor Moon   
  
lowered her sceptre, let the magic fade away, and gasped for air.  
  
Ryoko's body just hovered there, bent over backwards with her hands in front of her as if she was still resisting the blast. Then it wobbled and plummeted to the water below. She only missed the rocks near the falls by only a few feet.  
  
She hit the water with a giant splash and sent water flying in all directions. A few seconds later her body resurfaced and was swept down stream where she would eventually end up in the lake. None of them had the energy to go and pull out, so all they could do was watch. She vanished   
  
around the bend in the stream and they all sighed in relief.  
  
Ranma helped Mars stagger over to the others and they all collapsed at the edge of the stream to rest for a few minutes. They could tell that Mars wasn't in very good shape at all. The girl just sat there and tried not to moan in pain as her head throbbed and she fought against a dizzy spell.  
  
"That was a good shot Sailor Moon." Jupiter said as she patted Usagi on the head. "I can't believe that plan worked."  
  
Ranma nodded. "That was amazing, I'll have to figure out how you were able to do that. It would be a good attack to surprise an enemy with."  
  
The girls gave him a weird look.  
  
"What?"  
  
Moon shook her head. "Never mind; do you think she's finally defeated now? That's the hardest fight we've had in a long, long time."  
  
"I hope so." Venus said. "I'm wimped out."  
  
"Wiped out." Jupiter corrected her.  
  
"Whatever." She muttered and waved her hand. "How are you feeling Mars, we need to get you back to the house before you collapse."  
  
"I'll be fine, I just need to rest for a minute." She said.  
  
"You couldn't even stand."  
  
"I wanted to make sure Ryoko was defeated, you couldn't do it without me." She snapped and winced as her headache got ten times worse for a few   
  
seconds.  
  
"What about your concussion?" Jupiter asked.  
  
Mars shrugged. "Nothing to worry about."  
  
Sailor Moon stood up, sighed, and motioned for the others to follow her. "We need to get back to the house and see how Mercury is doing."  
  
"Good idea." Mars said as she forced herself to get up. Then as she started to walk towards the house, she tripped over her own feet and landed face first in the grass.  
  
They all ran over and knelt down beside the girl to see if she was alright, but she was out cold and wouldn't wake up. Ranma reached down and pulled her onto his back, taking a second to get her balanced just right for a long walk. He didn't want to drop her or anything like that.  
  
"Let's get her back to the house, I think she pushed herself a little too much in that fight. My pressure points are also wore off, that's why she won't wake up. She'll be out for the next twenty four hours." He said.  
  
"You said the point would last for an hour or so." Moon said.  
  
Ranma nodded. "On a normal person, but when you're transformed like this it seems that the time for pressure points is quite a bit less."  
  
They all looked worried about Mars, but they nodded and quickly turned and started to head for the house. Then Ranma noticed that Tenchi and Katsuhito had decided to come out of hiding.  
  
"Is she alright?" Tenchi asked as he indicated Sailor Mars.  
  
Ranma nodded. "Yeah, I think she just pushed herself to hard."  
  
"I am amazed that you were able to actually defeat Ryoko, I was almost positive that it would take everything we had just to slow her down." Katsuhito said. He looked a little shell-shocked.  
  
"It was quite a fight." Ranma said. The fight had taken more out of him than he wanted to admit. He barely had the strength left to stand and if they didn't make it back to the house within the next few minutes he knew he would be in trouble.  
  
"Is the cat coming?" He asked.  
  
Katsuhito nodded. "The other one is coming and should be here any time now."  
  
"Other one?" Moon asked.  
  
"Remember there were two people possessed. The other one is in the area and has been tracking you for the last hour or so." Tenchi said.  
  
"Remember, it was a few hundred yards from where Ryoko was possessed."  
  
The girls groaned as they recalled the incident. Ryoko's attack had just taken everything they had just to stop her.  
  
"I'd forgotten there was another one of those things running around." Venus said. "Just how strong is this one?"  
  
"Washuu's readings said it wasn't anywhere near as strong as Ryoko, but just as dangerous in other ways."  
  
"I can cleanse it like I did with Ryoko, but I need to catch it when it can't get away from me." Moon explained.  
  
"We had better hurry then." Sailor Jupiter said. "Something has been watching us for the last few minutes."  
  
Ranma nodded, he had been sensing something for a little while now. It was just hard to pinpoint for some reason, so he didn't know if it was a threat or not. "I'm just not sure where it is and that's bothering me, I can usually find anyone by sensing their Ki. That's how I was able to keep track of where Ryoko was during the fight."  
  
"What a time for Mercury to be down for the algebra." Venus muttered and looked around nervously.  
  
"Down for the count." Tenchi corrected her.  
  
Venus shrugged. "Eh."  
  
"Where do you think the other one is?" Sailor Moon asked as she led the group through a small copse of trees that actually managed to survive Ryoko's multiple attacks on the group.  
  
"All Washuu could say was that he was heading in this direction. Tenchi and I were out here to keep an eye on it and to make sure it didn't attack you while you defeated Ryoko. If we hurry we can get back to the house and get another reading on it before we go and fight it." Katsuhito explained to them.  
  
"We don't have time for that." Ranma said as he looked off to the side where a few trees were still burning and he narrowed his eyes. "There's something in there and its watching us. I can feel a lot of emotion coming from it, hatred, anger, and a few others I haven't encountered before."  
  
"You can sense all that?" Venus asked in surprise.  
  
He nodded. "I'm sensing the Ki it's putting out. He must be quite close for me to sense him though, or he stopped concealing his abilities now that he knows where we are."  
  
Katsuhito pulled his sword out as he finally sensed something and looked in the same direction that Ranma was facing. "I can feel him too, there is lots of power here."  
  
"More than I thought there would be." Ranma said.  
  
The girls formed up around Ranma and Sailor Mars to protect them and prepared to send attacks into the enemy as quickly as they could. "I was really hoping to make it back to the house before we had to do anymore fighting." Moon said.  
  
"You and me both." Ranma muttered, he had really pushed himself too far to take Ryoko down. Then he forgot about that as he saw the shadows around several trees contort and form into a large monster.  
  
The girls gasped.  
  
Rei snored, but she was out cold so she couldn't say much.  
  
"It's here." Tenchi said as he noticed the morphing shadows, pulled out the Tenchi-ken, and formed the energy blade. "It's moving in and out of the smoke like a ghost."  
  
Katsuhito nodded as he pulled out the energy sword Washuu had given him earlier. "I see it too, a huge cat like creature."  
  
Ranma gulped and backed up a few paces. "It really is a cat?"  
  
"Ranma?" Moon asked, wondering why she could feel a rising fear in him. "What's wrong?"  
  
"Nothing!" He snapped and visibly forced himself to calm down as the girls looked on. "Let's get Sailor Mars back to the house and then come back to help them fight this thing. She's wounded and shouldn't be here."  
  
"All of you go!" Katsuhito yelled at them and pointed in the direction of the house. "We can take care of this one on hour own, get the wounded back to the house where Washuu can look at them."  
  
"What about you?" Moon asked the old man.  
  
"I've fought large cats before, so I know how to defeat them easily enough. So get going!"  
  
"But…"  
  
There was a sound and the girls gasped as Sol stepped out from between a couple of burning trees and eyed them like his next meal. He was black as pitch and looked like a ten foot tall black panther as he silently walked towards them. His glowing red yes swept over them and stopped on Sailor Moon the instant he spotted her.  
  
"It's been a long time Your Highness."  
  
Sailor Moon gasped. "YOU CAN TALK!"  
  
It snorted. "Of course I can talk."  
  
Ranma tried to control his visible shivering as he stepped back another couple of paces and the cat noticed. "What do we have here? You're afraid of me? That is quite a surprise and considering how good a fighter you are."  
  
Sailor Moon placed her hand on his shoulder. "Calm down Ranma, I will make sure he doesn't hurt any of us."  
  
"I'm Fine!" He snapped.  
  
Moon backed off and realized that she had never seen him like this before. He really was frightened of the cat. She nodded and turned away from him   
  
before he could see the look in her yes. "We will stop you." She told the cat.  
  
It snorted again. "You just got done fighting that girl and look how long it took to defeat her. All of you should be easy for me to defeat now that she has worn you down." Sol said and let the crescent moon on his forehead flare up so they could see it.  
  
"He's a moon cat?" Venus asked herself.  
  
"Indeed, I was created to be an adviser to Sailor Earth, but she isn't around these days so I've been stuck in perpetual limbo for thousands of years. I was tired of it and decided to get a bit of revenge on the people that ruined my life. Namely all of YOU." He snarled and bared an evil set of teeth.  
  
Sol lifted a paw into the air and slowly let his claws extend they could get a real good look at them. "This new body of mine is quite surprising. It comes with all kinds of powers that even I've never heard of and I had to train in all levels of magic and diplomacy just to get the job. Now I want to show you what can really do."  
  
"Let's talk about this…" Sailor Moon started to say.  
  
Instead of listening to her, he just slammed his paw into the ground, shattering stone and dirt. "NEVER!"  
  
For just a second they all stood there in shock, but then the ground around his paw suddenly heaved and shattered, sending an explosion of dirt and rock flying towards them. Sailor Moon and rest of the Scouts all jumped out of the way as Tenchi and Katsuhito ran forward and used their   
  
swords to slice the larger rocks to pieces before they could reach the girls.  
  
The only one that didn't move was Ranma. Instead he just cringed a bit and backed up a few more steps. "This sucks he muttered. Why the hell did it have to be a cat and how in the hell can it pull off a Bakusai Tenketsu like attack?"  
  
"If you think I might be a pushover think again ladies, I have just as much power at my disposal as the woman had." Sol growls and turned to look at Ranma.  
  
"Ranma, come on! We have to get Mars back to the house." Sailor Moon yelled at him.  
  
"Are you two sure you can handle this?" He asked the two men, even though he was visibly shaking under the cat's glare.  
  
"Yeah, this is nothing compared to some of the other battles we've been in." Tenchi said as his clothing shifted into his Jurian armor, altered his skin color, and formed black slash marks on his cheeks. "This should be an easy opponent."  
  
"Jupiter!" Ranma yelled. When the Scout looked back at him, he shoved Sailor Mars into her arms. "Get her back to the house."  
  
"What about you?" She asked with a hint of worry in her voice.  
  
"I have to stay here and help." He said.  
  
"Ranma you don't have the strength for this." Sailor Moon said.  
  
He glared at her. "I will not abandon anyone in this fight."  
  
"You are not abandoning anyone! We need Washuu's help to defeat these things!"  
  
"Then go and get her to help, I'll make sure it doesn't leave this area." Ranma said, then turned around, and ran over to stand beside Tenchi.  
  
Moon glared after him for a second before she turned and motioned for the others to follow her. "MEN!" She yelled.  
  
"Come on Sailor Moon, we need to hurry." Jupiter said and started to run for the house carrying Mars.  
  
"We'll be right back!" Venus yelled at the guys and they waved as they ran off.  
  
**********  
  
"Are you sure you're up for this?" Tenchi asked.  
  
Ranma shrugged as he watched the cat before he glanced back at Tenchi. "I have no idea, but I'm not going to run off and have someone else fight my battles."  
  
"Don't let your arrogance make your decisions for you." Katsuhito said as he watched Sol. The cat hadn't made a move as the girls ran off and that had him worried more than a little. The cat was up to something and he couldn't figure out what it was.  
  
"Speak for yourself, old man." Ranma muttered as he tried to think of an attack that could get rid of the cat.  
  
"You're shaking in your shoes just looking at this thing." The old man said. "I don't know why, but if you let your fear control your actions you will not win this fight."  
  
"Screw you old man." Ranma snapped. "I'm fine!"  
  
"Why are you so afraid of this little cat?" Katsuhito asked.  
  
"That's none of your business, old man."  
  
"What's it doing over there?" Tenchi asked as he pointed off to the side of the cat, at its shadow.  
  
The burning trees were casting fire light everywhere, creating wild shadows the seemed to shift and move as they watched. The Cat's shadow on the other hand seemed to be bubbling like water instead of shifting and moving like the others.  
  
As they watched the scene, the cat slowly turned its red eyes on them and the bubbles of shadow suddenly grew out of control. They actually formed into shapes, stepped out of the cat's shadow to form into little tiny versions of him.  
  
Little panthers the size of a small house cat, with glowing red eyes, that moved without any sound at all. They swarmed out of the large cat's shadow and began to form up into ranks around the men. They hissed, almost as one being, and crouched down with their claws extended just as they were about to attack.  
  
Ranma had to resist ever instinct he had not to scream and run like he usually did when faced with a cat.  
  
"I am ready to begin." Sol said.  
  
"It's time." Katsuhito snapped and brought his energy sword to bare.  
  
Tenchi nodded and did the same.  
  
"Go little ones! You know what to do!" Sol yelled and the little shadow cats ran at them, fangs bared, and little red eyes glinting evilly in the light generated by the fire.  
  
Ranma did what he could to control his fear as he reached into his subspace pocket and pulled out his sword again. He didn't want to touch the little vermin and as far as he was concerned the quicker he killed them the better. Then he got quite a show as Tenchi and the old man went into action using their energy swords to slice the feline bastards to pieces before they could even get close.  
  
The only thing Ranma could see was whirling energy blades as each one of the cats got close, shredding it into little chunks of shadow that quickly vanished in the air. He actually wasn't help out very much, but he did get a few chances to use his sword and copied the moves that Tenchi was using to kill the little buggers.  
  
He felt good about killing the evil little buggers, splitting them in half, beheading them, and just slice and dicing them. Within seconds the three of them were being attacked from all sides. They ended up back to back as they fought, just doing everything they could to keep the things from touching them.  
  
Sol just looked on and grinned at them.  
  
"There's too many of them." Tenchi said.  
  
"Keep fighting them." Katsuhito snapped, using his sword to swat three of them out of the air as they jumped. "He can't keep this up forever."  
  
"Neither can the three of us." Tenchi yelled back.  
  
Ranma didn't even have time to talk. Every time they took one of them out two of them would take its place. As he copied Tenchi's sword style and unconsciously picked up the Jurian sword style, he thought of a quick attack that might work against these things. He revised it on the fly, like he did with so many moves, and slashed straight down with his sword and channelled   
  
his Ki into the blade. "Kijin Raishu Dan Revised: Blade of Blood!" Ranma screamed.  
  
A massive vacuum blade launched off the edge of his sword and flew threw all the little shadows in front of him, vaporizing a couple dozen at once, and slammed into Sol's head.  
  
The cat, who was concentrating on the attack, didn't have a chance to dodge as the ki attack slammed into him. He yowled in pain and scrambled back in shock. After several seconds it stopped scrambling around and crouched down to glare at them. This allowed the little shadow cats to run around without any direction from Sol. Most of them simply melted into the nearest shadow, but a few of them stuck around to see what would happen next.  
  
Katsuhito was a bit surprised at the sudden end to the onslaught of little cats, but then he heard Ranma gasping for air behind him and knew something had happened. "What happened?"  
  
"Some kind of weird air blade attack." Tenchi said as he relaxed and gazed at Ranma too.  
  
Ranma shuddered as he looked at the cat, but forced himself to relax as best he could. He kept having flash backs from the Pit and it took everything he had not to lose control and descend into the Neko-ken.   
  
"There's more from where that came from cat, bring it on and I'll show something even stronger."  
  
"I think I understand why that girl had so many problems fighting you."  
  
He smirked.  
  
"You just don't react the way a normal person usually does, do you?" The cat said and paced to the side and back again.  
  
"Bring it on you half wit monster, I can take anything you have to throw at me." Ranma snarled, actually feeling a bit of his confidence come back.  
  
Sol snarled. "Let's see how you handle this then."  
  
His eyes flared up as he looked at Ranma and fired two beams of energy from his eyes, one from each eye. They missed Ranma completely, but they did hit Katsuhito and Tenchi.  
  
Ranma scrambled out of the way as the two men screamed out in shock and instantly fell into their shadows, as if a hole had suddenly opened up beneath them. He made a quick grab for Tenchi's hand, but the boy was already gone by the time he even got close enough to try. In an instant there was no sign of him or the old man except for their shadows.  
  
"What did you do?!" He yelled.  
  
The cat laughed. "I'm calling on one of my more useful powers boy. While you take care of this I'm going to go and play with the girls, I believe you said they would be at the house."  
  
"I won't let you."  
  
"You wont' have time to stop me." Sol said and used his head to gesture at the two shadows.  
  
He turned and started to back away as the shadows started to writhe and shift around for several seconds. Then Katsuhito and Tenchi slowly rose out of their shadows and stood there with their heads bowed.  
  
It was instantly apparent that the two of them had changed in significant way. The first thing he noticed was that their Ki seemed to have been corrupted while they were inside their own shadows. He didn't know how to describe the other changes he could see.  
  
Tenchi's clothing, though still in his Jurian battle armor, was darker and appeared to be more evil and corrupted. There was no white left on the uniform, everything was either black or grey, even his sword. It had a dark grey finish and the jewels on the hilt were glowing. Though they seemed to alternate between red and blue ever few seconds.  
  
On the other hand, Katsuhito didn't seem to have changed all that much. He still had his robes, but he looked younger now. With his hair tied back in a longer ponytail. The biggest change was his eyes. Without the glasses Ranma could see the old man's power looking out at him from the depths.  
  
"Have fun with my toys boy, you should lots and lots of fun with these two. They resisted the shadows I placed inside of them quite a bit, but it was worth it just to see them take you out." Sol said with a laughing hiss.  
  
Then Tenchi lifted his head and Ranma gasped as he recognized the same look that he'd seen in Katsuhito's eyes.  
  
"They've been possessed?!" He yelled.  
  
Sol laughed. "Maybe yes, maybe no, it's all up to you to decide what I did to them."  
  
Ranma started back away from the two men as they suddenly came to life and turned to glare at him. "Oh &%$#!" He yelled.  
  
"They should keep you occupied long enough for me to go and talk to the princess as any good adviser should." Sol said. "Oh here, I guess you can play with this one too. I saved her before the Princess could obliterate her completely."  
  
The cat's laugh made Ranma shiver a little as he backed away a few more steps and watched in shock as Ryoko lifted up out of the cat's shadow and looked around with glowing red eyes. She turned to look at the cat, then at Ranma, and nodded as she cracked her knuckles.  
  
The three of them shot forward and Ranma jumped back before they could slice him in half with their swords. He ducked, rolled, and flipped out of the way as the two master swordsman attempted to turn him into ground chuck. Then the ground at his feet went up in an inferno as Ryoko added her own personal stamp to the fight.  
  
"&%$#!"  
  
"Ta ta!" Sol yelled as ran off in the direction Sailor Moon gone just a few minutes before.  
  
For just a second Ranma saw red as he lost his temper and he turned that onto the three people attacking him. He focused on Tenchi first and use his Anything Goes skill to show the sword user just how hard it was to take him on.  
  
With three devastating blows to Tenchi's foot, groin, and forehead, he sent the boy flying into a nearby tree hard enough knock him out cold. He watched the body for a second, not really realizing what he had just done, and noticed as the body flickered Tenchi returning to normal.  
  
"If all I've got to do is knock them out, then this should be easy enough." He muttered to himself as he turned back to Katsuhito. The man hadn't continued the attack after Ranma focused on Tenchi, but now that Ranma was looking at him again, he decided that the battle was back on.  
  
"What are you thinking?" Ranma asked the man.  
  
Instead of replying, Katsuhito didn't make any noise at all, as he shot forward and Ranma had to go on the defensive as the energy blade whirled around the old man's body almost faster than he he'd ever seen it move yet. Ranma was amazed at the old man's level of skill and seriously wondered how long he could keep up this pace.  
  
He kept an eye on Ryoko as she floated above them and watched the fight with her arms crossed. For some reason she was waiting for them to finish fighting as well. If the two of them had fought together, Ranma was positive he would lose that fight. The old man was just too good, but if they went one at a time, he could take them down.  
  
So he focused on Katsuhito completely, the style was the same as the last time they had fought, but much faster than before. He understood what the sword could do from watching Tenchi and the old man for a while now, but he had never encountered a man with this level of skill with the sword before.  
  
That horse's ass Kuno would never be able to fight like this, even when a magical sword possessed him. He let instinct guide his hand and he did a sudden side flip, twist, and Katsuhito's blade passed right through his side.  
  
It was a sacrificial move, but one that he needed to do in order to change the flow of the fight. This allowed the old man to slice out a small bit of skin just below his ribs. He landed, spun his blade around at an odd angle, and forced Katsuhito to back up so he wasn't hit himself.  
  
The old man wasn't slowed for long though, moving so fast that Ranma couldn't even get a hit in. Ranma had been fighting all day now and he'd reached his limit while fighting against the first Ryoko. Now he was forcing himself to fight even more battles and he seriously wondered when it would end, but there was no way he could back down.  
  
Then completely out of the blue he spotted an opening in the old man's defenses and took advantage of it. His sword spun in his hand and he ducked under Katsuhito's blade using his enhanced speed as Vulcan, formed a ball of Ki in the palm of his hand, and slammed it into the old man's chest.  
  
The direct attack exploded and hurled the old man off his feet. He flew back a few yards and landed in the grass with a thump and rolled a few times before he came to a stop. For a second it looked like he was going to get up again, but then the just fell back down and lay still. Then he flickered for a second and returned to normal.  
  
Gasping for air, Ranma staggered back a few steps, dropped to one knee and looked up at Ryoko as she hovered above him. There was no trace of emotion on her face as she looked down at him. No excitement, no happiness, nothing that he could see that would indicate that she was in a winning position. "Well, aren't you going to say anything?" He muttered.  
  
She just lifted her hand and formed a ball energy and prepared to fire it at him.  
  
"They aren't talking." Ranma muttered and had a sudden idea as he saw something and heaved himself back to his feet.  
  
He used his foot to suddenly kick a handful of dirt into her face, jumped into the air an instant later, and spun his sword around so that he could slam the hilt into the base of her neck. She fell to the ground silently and flickered out of existence. Not even leaving a body behind.  
  
"That's what I thought." He muttered as he dropped his sword, fell to the ground, and fell over unconscious.  
  
Several minutes later the Scouts finally returned, Sailor Moon, Venus, and Jupiter came to a stop and surveyed the destruction in awe. They rarely had fights that ended with this level of destruction and it was a sight to see. Sailor Moon ran over to Ranma and checked to make sure he was all right other than the fact that he had pushed himself too far.  
  
"He's hurt!"  
  
Venus quickly checked on Tenchi and Katsuhito and found that they were unconscious as well. "So are these two."  
  
"Where is that cat thing?"  
  
"I don't know, it doesn't appear to be here anymore." Jupiter muttered as she looked around.  
  
Nearby, a door of light appeared out of nowhere. Washuu walked out and looked around. The red headed scientist quickly called up her holographic computer, scanned the area with her computer, and nodded to herself a few seconds later. "Just as I thought, that thing isn't around anymore."  
  
"Where did it go?" Jupiter asked.  
  
"I don't know, but I'll find it."  
  
"What about the guys?" Venus asked.  
  
Washuu snapped her fingers and all three guys vanished in a flare of light. "I sent them back to my lab. I'll be able to treat them there. Let's get back to the house and make sure everybody else is okay."  
  
"You didn't place them with Ryoko did you?" Ayeka asked.  
  
"No, Ryoko has been placed in stasis until I can make sure she is alright."  
  
"What about Mars and Mercury?" Sailor Moon asked.  
  
"They just need some sleep and they will be fine. Sailor Mercury is asleep at the moment, along with the guys, and Mars is being treated for her concussion and the damages she did to herself while fighting. They'll be fine." Washuu explained.  
  
"Does this mean the fight is finished?" Moon asked with a hint of worry in her voice.  
  
"Yes, now let's get back to the house." Wahsu said. "I'll meet you at the house and let you into the lab when I get the men stabilized."  
  
The girls nodded as Washuu stepped back through her door of light and vanished from sight.  
  
"What a day." Moon muttered and headed back for the house.  
  
"That witch could have at least given us a ride back to the house!" Venus complained.  
  
The other two girls nodded.  
  
**********  
  
The girls crowded around one side of the table as Ranma lay on the hard metal surface. Now that they were able to get a better look, they were shocked that he had even been able to fight for as long as he had. Most of his Vulcan uniform was burned around the edges or had large holes in it where you could see the burned skin underneath.  
  
He had lost his cape somewhere along the way and the jewel on his chest flickered erratically. His gloves were gone, the visor was useless, and the Scouts were amazed that Ranma was still breathing. Surprisingly, there were no signs of broken bones according to Washuu as she ran a scanner over his body and let her computers analyze him.  
  
"This is the second time I've had a chance to scan Ranma." Washuu said a few seconds later to get the girl's attention. "The first time was when he showed up here as a girl."  
  
"Will he be all right?" Sailor Moon asked.  
  
"I think so, he seems to have just exhausted himself during the fight. I'm actually surprised he lasted as long as he did."  
  
"Is there anyway to wake him up?"  
  
"Let's just let him rest for now." Washuu said as she used a hypo spray to send him into a deeper sleep. "He needs his rest. The same goes for Sailor Mercury over there, I figure the two of them should be up and around eventually. Perhaps in a few hours."  
  
The girl nodded.  
  
"Now these two," Washuu muttered as she indicated Tenchi and Katsuhito laid out on a couple of nearby tables. "They need to be monitored for the next few days. That cat did something to them and it may have effected their minds, so I need to be around to make sure they are completely healed."  
  
Then she walked over to the other side of the lab where Ryoko was floating inside a large tube filled with a green liquid. "According to my scans Ryoko doesn't have any sign of that thing inside of her anymore. In fact it's as if the possession never happened at all. What ever you did Sailor Moon, it seems to have cured her completely."  
  
"I used an old attack on her, one that can remove all the negative energy inside them."  
  
Washuu nodded as she took some notes. "The thing that possessed her was almost entirely made up of a kind of negative energy now that I think about it. So your attack must have been quite devastating."  
  
"Hey what are these things?" Sailor Venus asked.  
  
They turned around to see Venus poking at the rather scratched up, but repaired, bodies of Kamindake and Azaka. She jumped back as a large spark of electricity jumped from her finger and hit Azaka in his jewel sensor. A nearby scanner shorted out and exploded in a hail of shrapnel.  
  
Venus coughed up some smoke and sighed.  
  
"My god, she's another Mihoshi!" Washuu yelled as her hair stood up on end.  
  
"Where's Sailor Mars?" Sailor Moon asked as she looked around and didn't see her friend.  
  
"Your other friend is in the next room. She took the most damage, except for Ranma. She received that concussion and then went and ran around like an idiot for half an hour or so. I'm surprised she didn't kill herself just doing that. The headache must have been painful enough to knock out anyone else." Washuu muttered. "I've got her hooked up to a machine that was designed to help with concussions and skull fractures. She'll be on it for a while yet."  
  
"Can we see her?" Jupiter asked.  
  
"Yes, but from a different room."  
  
Washuu led them through a couple of doors and into a large circular room with large windows set in the floor that rose all the way to the ceiling at an angle. They all walked over and looked down into a room to see Sailor Mars laid out on a table with her head inside a large machine. There was a large sheet draped over her body and all they could see were gloves and a   
  
chest bow.  
  
"How long will she have to be in that thing?"  
  
"Twenty four hours at least, the process is quite slow, but it has to be that way in order for it to work." Washuu explained. "It also doesn't help that your magic, while transformed, makes working on all of you a bit difficult."  
  
"It allows us to heal from injuries that would normally take us down." Jupiter explained.  
  
"It just slows me down." Washuu muttered as she led them over to a door and opened it to reveal a giant hot spring bath. "Anyway, while we wait for everyone to recover, would you girls like to use this to relax?"  
  
"Wow!" Moon gasped. "I didn't even know something like this existed!"  
  
Venus and Jupiter ran inside to look around in awe. "How did you build something like this inside the house?!"  
  
"I am the greatest scientific genius in the universe!" Washuu declared. "Building a dimensional pocket was child's play for a scientist of my skills."  
  
"Thank you." Sailor Moon said as she entered the room.  
  
"I'll let you girls get cleaned up. You see that rock in the middle of the spring, it's a fake rock, just flip it up and there is some shampoos and other odds and ends in there to help you relax." Washuu explained as she left the room and shut the door.  
  
There was a table nearby with several large towels stacked on it, so the girls transformed back to normal, stripped their school uniforms off, and wrapped the towels around themselves. Minako didn't waste any time running over to the spring and dipping her toe in.  
  
"It's really hot!"  
  
"It's a good thing we are cleaned up when we transform, or we would really be in a mess right now." Makoto said as she stepped into the water.  
  
Usagi sighed as she finished wrapping her hair in a towel and wadded into the spring and leaned up against the wall. "This feels so good."  
  
"What are we going to tell Rei about this place?" Minako asked.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"She won't be too happy that we used it when she's being fixed by that machine."  
  
"Washuu said she would be fine." Usagi said. "I think we can trust her after everything that happened today. She can try this place out when she wakes up."  
  
They nodded and took a few minutes to enjoy the feel of the heated water. Then Makoto wadded over to the rock Washuu had pointed out to them and opened it. She started to sort through all the bottles inside to see if there anything in there that she might like. "Oh my!"  
  
Usagi looked up. "What did you find?"  
  
"Sake!" Makoto yelled and held up a large bottle.  
  
"Is it heated?" Minako asked. "After what happened today I think I could use some of that."  
  
Makoto grabbed one of the several wooden buckets stacked near the fake rock and used it float the sake over to the girls while she grabbed three small sake dishes. "We shouldn't drink much of this, but a dish or two will be fine."  
  
They grinned as they all drank the sake and leaned back to let it go to work. A few minutes later, they downed their fourth dish and started to look a little flushed. Usagi just sighed and leaned up against the wall to enjoy the warm water. Makoto, didn't look like the sake was effecting her very much as she drank right out of the bottle.  
  
Minako on the other hand was looking completely sloshed, as she was half-sprawled against the wall and giggling. "I can't shtop thinking about it." She muttered.  
  
"Minako, are you alright?" Usagi asked as she helped the girl lean back up against the wall.  
  
"Thinking about what?" Makoto wondered aloud as she decided that Minako had no alcohol tolerance and quietly put the half-empty bottle back in the fake rock. She figured out of sight, out of mind.  
  
"I saw Ranma running around naked in the woods." Minako gushed and blushed a solid red. "I've never seen anything like itsh!"  
  
"Oh that." Makoto muttered and blushed just as red as Minako. "I have to agree, that was quite a sight and he didn't even seem to care that we saw him either. Right then, and there, he looked just like my old boyfriend, though there were some big improvements." She giggled and blushed. "What a sight."  
  
"Aaaaaaaaaaaa!! You saw my Ranma naked!" Usagi yelled.  
  
The two scouts leaned back, relived the memory, and sighed in unison. "I'll never forget that as long as I live."  
  
Usagi bounced from one foot to another. "But…but…but…"  
  
"We saw that too." Minako said with a giggle.  
  
"To bad Ayeka ruined the free show." Makoto muttered.  
  
"I think I might be willing to give him more than a second chance." Minako muttered, reliving the fantasy and starting to drool a little.  
  
"You can't have my Ranma!" Usagi yelled.  
  
"I like the idea of an 'our' Ranma." Makoto said and smirked.  
  
"I can drown with that!" Minako laughed, fell over, and floated away from the two girls. She splashed around for a while trying to get her balance back.  
  
Usagi started to pout.  
  
The door opened and Ayeka wandered in and spotted the girls. "Hey you three, it's been an hour. We should have something to eat ready by the time you get back to the living room. We set out some futon's for you as well. So you can sleep here tonight."  
  
"I have to call my mom if we are going to stay the night." Usagi muttered.  
  
"No problem, get dressed and I'll show you where the phone is."  
  
"Okay." Usagi muttered as she walked over to the table where she had piled her clothes. Minako and Makoto debated for a few minutes whether they even wanted to get out again, and then decided that they'd had enough.  
  
"Wait up Usagi!" They yelled as she was about to leave the room.  
  
The four of them were able to walk out of the door into the hallway in the main house without having to go through Washuu's lab. Ayeka led the girls over to the phone at the end of the hall to let them call home. Makoto realized that they had transformed back to normal and let the others see them.  
  
"Usagi, should we worry about them seeing us as ourselves?" She asked.  
  
"Naw, they seem pretty cool with all this strange and unusual stuff anyway. We can worry about it later if it becomes a problem."  
  
Makoto nodded.  
  
On the other hand, Minako still hadn't stopped daydreaming about a naked Ranma. She completely zoned out as she followed the two girls, even though Usagi was trying to ignore her. After that, Usagi tried to use her communicator to call Luna, but the black cat wasn't answering.  
  
"It's pretty late, she must be sleeping or something." Makoto said.  
  
"Could she be with Artemis?" Minako suggested drunkenly. "Those two are so close to being a couple perhaps they finally took that final step?"  
  
They giggled and remembered the commotion Diana had caused when she arrived from the future. Luna had completely blown a gasket and attacked Artemis in a fit of jealously. Minako pulled out her communicator and tapped a button, a few seconds later Artemis appeared on the screen.  
  
"Minako?"  
  
"Artemis, what are you doing with Luna?" Minako asked evilly.  
  
"NOTHING!" he yelled looking around frantically.  
  
"Right, I know how you are tuna breath."  
  
"Minako, are you drunk?"  
  
"Oh yeah, and feeling good." She muttered and waved nearly lost her balance. Makoto had to grab her shoulder to make sure she really didn't fall on her butt.  
  
"Minako!"  
  
"Don't you yell at me tuna breath!" Minako snapped and glared at the cat.  
  
"You know you shouldn't drink."  
  
"Eh, whatever." Minako muttered and waved her hand.  
  
Usagi moved behind Minako to and looked into the screen. "Artemis is Luna there?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
"We weren't able to get a hold of her."  
  
"Um, weird, I'll head over to your house and see if I can find her. Is it important?"  
  
"We just wanted to update her on the situation."  
  
"Just tell me and I'll relay it to her." Artemis said and glanced covertly to the side, but the girls didn't notice it.  
  
The girls nodded and spent the next few minutes getting him up to date on the day's fight. When they were done, Minako grilled Artemis for a few minutes about Luna, then gave up with a sigh. They closed the communicator a little while later and walked out into the living room where Sasami was setting dinner on the table.  
  
"Hi guys! Ready to eat now?"  
  
"I'm always ready to eat!" Usagi said as she sat down looked at all the food.  
  
"Did Washuu say if any of the others would be joining us?" Minako asked Ayeka as she sat down.  
  
"No, but I think that Mercury should be waking up soon as well as Tenchi and Katsuhito. So they may join us soon."  
  
"I'm worried about all of them." Usagi muttered as she started to put some food on her plate.  
  
"They will all be fine." Ayeka said.  
  
"I hope so."  
  
They ate in silence, a rare occasion at this house, but then the door to Washuu's lab opened and Katsuhito, Mercury, and Washuu walked out. Washuu walked over and started to fill up a plate before any of the others even had a chance to say anything to her, then turned around, and headed back into her lab without saying a word.  
  
A blonde blur jumped up from the table and tackle hugged Mercury before she even had a chance to react. Mercury looked up from the floor beside the couch and saw that everyone was looking at her and blushed. "Um…"  
  
"I was so worried!" Usagi wailed.  
  
"I'm fine." She said as Usagi finally let go and backed off. "Is it all right for me to transform?"  
  
Usagi nodded.  
  
She stood up and a few seconds later Ami sighed as she took a seat at the table next to Makoto. "What happened while I was out."  
  
"A nasty fight." Makoto said.  
  
"Oh? Was anyone else hurt? I don't see Rei around her anywhere." Ami said.  
  
"Washuu is treating her for a concussion. She really shouldn't have been fighting with that kind of injury."  
  
Ami nodded. "Is there anyway I can help?"  
  
"Eat first, and then we can all go and check on the others." Ayeka said.  
  
"Well…" Usagi started.  
  
"Washuu's orders, eat first, relax, then you can check on them." Ayeka explained.  
  
"Ah." The girls chorused.  
  
"What happened to Ranma?" Ami asked.  
  
"He fought until he just passed out from exhaustion." Ayeka said as she dabbed her mouth with a napkin. "Washuu was monitoring the fight with her sensors in that area. That giant cat thing managed to possess both Tenchi and Katsuhito before they had a chance to understand what was going on. Then after that it raised this shadow version of Ryoko and Ranma was forced to fight all three by himself."  
  
"How did he win?" Ami wondered.  
  
"Washuu wasn't sure actually, but Tenchi and Katsuhito have special abilities that make them very powerful. The fact that Ranma was even able to hold his own against them was amazing, but to knock the two of them unconscious in his condition shocked even Washuu. She thinks Tsunami might have interfered to give Ranma the chance he needed. Then, after that he used the very last of his strength to attack the Shadow Ryoko and knock her out by tricking her." Ayeka explained.  
  
They all looked at Katsuhito, but he shrugged. "I don't remember a thing that happened. One second I'm fighting off these little shadow cats, the next I'm waking up in Washuu's lab."  
  
"I've been training with Ranma for a while and I've learned that he doesn't like to quit, ever. He pushes himself to hard sometimes." Usagi said as she quickly finished off her dinner.  
  
The others nodded and realized that Usagi had been acting a bit different from normal too. Minako wasn't really paying complete attention to what was going on around her, but the drool on her chin and the never-ending blank stare gave a good clue to what she was thinking about.  
  
"Can we check on Ranma and Rei now?" Usagi asked. "It's been over an hour and Washuu said Ranma might be awake by the time Ami woke up."  
  
"Sure, let's just clean up the dishes first and then we can go and check on them." Ayeka said.  
  
"I'll handle the dishes." Sasami said.  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"No problem, I can handle them by myself. Go and check on the others, I want to know how Tenchi is doing too."  
  
"Great!" Ayeka crowed as she stood up and headed for the door that led to Washuu's lab. "Let's go."  
  
**********  
  
"Washuu, were back!" Ayeka yelled as they all entered Washuu's lab a few seconds later.  
  
The red headed scientist was running a scan on Ranma as they walked in and she sighed. Distracting them with the hot spring and dinner hadn't worked as well as she might have hoped it would. Even worse, the Mihoshi clone was back. For a second she considered placing her with the bubble headed blonde in the back room, then shrugged and waved them over to where she was   
  
examining Ranma. "How are all of you feeling?"  
  
"Better." Usagi said with a grin.  
  
"Good, can one of you get him to transform back? I can't do anything so long as he's like this." She said and waved at the Ranma's battered clothing and armor.  
  
"He needs to will the clothing away." Ami said. "It's made like that to protect us when we lose a fight."  
  
Washuu nodded. "While he's like this I can't do anything though."  
  
"He's had a couple hours sleep, so wake him up and get him to do it himself." Usagi said.  
  
"I might hurt him if I force him to wake up to early and getting proper readings through this outfit of his is impossible." Washuu snapped. "I had better luck with Sailor Mars, at least she had skin showing."  
  
Ami pulled out her computer, ran some scans on Ranma, and found that she was able to get some decent readings on him. "He's got a lot of internal scaring, but nothing life threatening. Just let him sleep for now and he should be fine in a few hours. If these readings are right then he should also wake up here in a few hours anyway." Ami explained as she showed the readings to Washuu on her little computer.  
  
"I see, I see, I hadn't taken into account the types of energies being used to maintain the clothing. It's different than what you girls are using for your fuku." Washuu said as she read Ami's computer screen. Then she noticed something else on the very edge of the screen and pointed at it. "What's this reading for?"  
  
The blue haired Scout leaned forward and looked to see what Washuu was looking at. "Oh that, I haven't been able to track down what it means yet. It's never changed while we were in a battle and never even started to show up until just recently."  
  
"I've seen that reading before, but I'll have to do a bit of research to track it down myself."  
  
"Do you think it's important?"  
  
Washuu nodded. "Yes, but it's nothing to really worry about right now…" Washuu said, but a groan interrupted her before she could say anything else. She turned to see that Ranma was waking up. "What in the world?!"  
  
"Ranma!" The girls yelled as he raised his hand to his head and cupped his face.  
  
"I feel like my old man tried to teach me a new technique." He muttered as all the girls crowded around him and forced Washuu to move away.  
  
"Interesting, he's almost as intriguing as Tenchi." She said as she moved to check on the other boy and give the girls some privacy.  
  
"Ranma, are you all right?" Usagi asked as she grabbed his hand.  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine, I just feel like I was hit by a car." He muttered.  
  
Amy made a few more readings. "You over stressed your body and used your powers to much."  
  
"That sounds about right." He muttered and forced himself to sit up and set on the edge of the table and looked around. "Where are we?"  
  
"Washuu's lab."  
  
Ranma paled a little and recalled the torture session he'd had to endure the last time he was here. "Well since I'm awake, I need something to eat."  
  
"We just got done with supper, but Sasami might be able to get you something." Ayeka said.  
  
He glanced over at her and remembered when he left her by the lake. "Good, I think I could eat enough food to feed an army."  
  
"We may not have that much, but we can get you a meal at least."  
  
"Anything." He said as he slid off the table and stood up on shaky legs. "So long as its food and there's lots of it."  
  
"You might want to transform Ranma." Minako suggested with a covert glance at Makoto to keep quiet.  
  
"Oh yeah, didn't even notice I was transformed, my visor isn't working." Ranma said. His clothing shimmered and he was suddenly standing in front of five girls with a robe wrapped around his waist.  
  
The girls gasped as they all saw his muscled chest and stomach, they started to drool.  
  
"Humina…" Minako muttered and had to force herself not to reach out and touch something.  
  
Ranma gave them a weird look as all their eyes glazed over. Then he looked down and noticed what he was wearing and the robe fell to the ground. This of course gave the girls another free show and they all froze in shock as   
  
Ranma calmly bent over and rewrapped the robe around himself. "Oh yeah, I forgot I'd lost my clothes before I transformed."  
  
"Hey Ranma, you're a little underdressed there." Washuu called out as she looked the over.  
  
"Yeah, about that, you wouldn't happen to know where my pack is at? I sat it down somewhere just before the fight with Ryoko started. I have a change of clothes in there."  
  
The holographic computer appeared as Washuu raised her hand and she tapped a few buttons. "It's out in the front room, hold on and I'll bring it in here."  
  
A portal opened up and the bag fell out at Ranma's feet. He reached down and opened it up. He tossed the clothes he'd bought for Tenchi to Washuu. "While I'm thinking about it could you give those to Tenchi when he wakes up, I managed to destroy the ones I took from him, and so I had to replace them with a new set."  
  
"Sure, no problem." Washuu said.  
  
Then Ranma pulled out several items and quickly dressed in his normal clothing, except this time instead of the sleeveless red shirt it was the one with the long sleeves and white cuffs. A few seconds later he sat his slippers on top of the bag. "You wouldn't happen to know where I can get   
  
some shoes would you?"  
  
"Shoes?" Washuu asked.  
  
He nodded. "My only pair were destroyed in the fight."  
  
"I'll make you some, what kind did you have in mind?"  
  
"Basic everyday shoes that can stand a bit of wear and tear from all the martial arts that I do." Ranma explained.  
  
"Sure, and what about them?" Washuu asked and pointed at the salivating girls still grouped around Ranma's bed.  
  
"Got me, girls are weird." He muttered.  
  
Then the girls all turned, almost in unison and for a second Ranma felt light headed. Several rather dirty thoughts flashed through his head as he looked at the girls. He wasn't used to such thought and whenever he did the Tomboy would usually hit him through the roof. It was as if she could read his mind or something.  
  
He looked around to see if she really was there as the hair on the back of his neck stood up, then sighed as he remembered that he hadn't seen her in some time. Then he caught a hint of movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up just as Minako shot forward, jumped into the air, and tackled him.  
  
"Whoa!" He yelled, but didn't get any further as she suddenly kissed him right on the mouth. His eyes tripped in size and he froze in place as she attempted to suck his tonsils out.  
  
Ranma barely sensed the wave of anger and shock that washed over him as all the Scouts suddenly pounced on Minako and tried to pull her off, but she wouldn't budge. Ranma whimpered a little and found that he couldn't think straight as Minako rubbed something against him that he usually tried to ignore if at all possible. Then Minako was pulled away form him with a 'pop' and she desperately tried to get back to him.  
  
"Mine!" She yelled and clawed at the air.  
  
"Control yourself Mina!" Makoto yelled, but the blonde just continued to struggle.  
  
Then Usagi dove in just as Ranma was recovering and she kissed him as well and he completely passed out a few seconds later. Usagi looked a little sheepish as she crawled off him. "Oops."  
  
"No!" Minako yelled.  
  
"Minako!" Makoto yelled.  
  
"I don't know, but I want to do that too." Ami said and made a grab for Ranma, but the rest of them dog piled her before she could get close enough.  
  
Washuu looked over at Minako and smirked a little as she thought to herself. 'She has no control at all does she?' Then she reached into a sub space pocket, pulled out a hypo spray, and used it to medicate Minako into a deep sleep before she could resist.  
  
The girls were a bit surprised at first, but then they suddenly got tired themselves and slumped to the floor a few seconds later. The only one not affected was Ayeka and she had to dig herself out of the pile.  
  
"What in the world was that?!" She yelled.  
  
Cackling loudly Washuu just shook her head and headed across the lab to go and check on Rei. She had a feeling that the girl would be affected as well. She wasn't too surprised to see that she had been struggling against the force field keeping her in place before she got tired and passed out too. "Yep, that girl has no control yet, but she'll learn in time."  
  
"Hey Washuu, are these girls supposed to be talking in their sleep?" Ayeka asked suddenly.  
  
"No, why are you asking?" Washuu yelled back.  
  
"Minako just started laughing and mumbling about taking a vacation, while she was still sleeping." Ayeka said.  
  
"Sounds like a good idea to me, just remind them in the morning." Washuu said as she typed a few commands into her computer and opened portals below the girls. "Now get out of my lab, I have other people to look at and all of you are in the way!"  
  
Ayeka and everyone else ended up in the living room right in front of the TV piled on top of each other. She groaned as she had to dig out from under them again. They didn't even stir as she pushed various body parts out of the way. "This is just not my day."  
  
**********  
  
To Be Continued...  
  
* Flower Hurricane - http://www.geocities.com/juubandistrict/attacks/flowerhurricane.html I   
  
wasn't sure if I should use this, but since its part of the established Sailor Jupiter arsenal attacks, I figured what the heck. It also works great for this part of the chapter. It's listed as an attack in the Manga and the Live Action series.  
  
** Akuryou Taisan - http://www.geocities.com/juubandistrict/attacks/akuryoutaisan.html This is   
  
another attack from the Live Action series, first used in episode four. This is another of those attacks I wasn't planning to use, since I was going to stick with the manga and anime attacks, but I just found an excellent place to use it and went with the flow. Unlike Jupiter's attack, this one is pure Live Action Sailor Moon, it doesn't appear anywhere in the manga or the anime.  
  
End Notes – And there ends the battle between Ranma and Ryoko, did I do a good job? A massive amount of material to cover, but as it progressed almost all of this had to be put in. I even had to shorten a few things just make sure I didn't go overboard. I hope I made it a fun read and that everyone likes the way the fight went. There was no way, in my opinion, that Ranma could single handily defeat Ryoko in a one on one fight. He's strong, but she is almost unstoppable, can fly, survive pure vacuum, and fire off energy blasts stronger than what Saffron could ever do. From that grew this fight and all its twists and turns.  
  
As for its length, I figured I'd just include the whole second half of fight in one chapter otherwise I would still be on chapter 7 instead of chapter 8. The next chapter will be shorter as I cover a vacation trip for the Scouts and they drag Ranma along for the ride. I will also explain Sol's sudden   
  
disappearance and set in motion the final battle of the story. I will try not to make it as long as this one was, but no promises, I like a good fight scene.  
  
*****  
  
Omake:  
  
By Gordon Stevenson  
  
"Ryoko, we can help you." Tenchi said as he stepped forward. He ignored the look his grandfather was giving him.  
  
"Sorry Tenchi, but being possessed an all, I have to do this, and so be a good boy and go inside where you will be safe." Ryoko said as she looked at him lustfully.  
  
"But…"  
  
"Remember to cover yourself with honey as well. I'll be by to help you clean it up later." Ryoko said and licked her lips.  
  
Tenchi paled a bit and moved back several steps. "Um…heheheh."  
  
"Ryoko that isn't very nice." Mihoshi said. "You need to use chocolate instead of honey. It lasts longer and tastes so much better."  
  
Suddenly Sailor Venus Popped up and said: "Really?! Let me write that down," and pulled a pad and a pencil from her subspace pocket and quickly began taking notes.  
  
Turning to Mihoshi: "Do you have any more advice sensei?"  
  
"Well, you need something to go with the chocolate, there's Whip Cream and Cherries or Whip Cream and Strawberries." Mihoshi said.  
  
"Which do you recommend?" asked Venus quickly jotting down notes as everyone stared at the two of them in shock. (Except for a deeply red blushing Sailor Mercury who was taking her own notes on the Mercury computer).  
  
"Actually, I prefer both; I have quite a sweet tooth". Said Mihoshi which caused a mass facefault from the surrounding listeners except for Sailor Venus and a beet red Sailor Mercury.  
  
"Great idea! After what I just saw, I can't wait to try this new 'recipe' out said Venus. She started daydreaming and a line of drool started to form and hang off the edge of her lip. Then she started giggling lecherously.  
  
Over in the forest surrounding the Masaki family shrine Ranma paused as his whole body underwent a full body shiver.  
  
"What the heck brought that on?" he wondered.  
  
Back at the Masaki household Venus snapped out of her erotic daydream, turned to Mihoshi and asked, "Do you know if they make candy Handcuffs?"  
  
"No they don't," Replied the blond GP officer, "But I'm sure Washuu-chan could turn a pair of normal handcuffs to candy for us". Stated Mihoshi with confidence. "Here you go". Said Washuu as she handed a pair of candy cuffs to Venus causing a severe nosebleed to a severely blushing Sailor Mercury as a few uses for the cuffs suddenly popped into her mind.  
  
Back in the forest, Ranma gasped as a full body shiver twice as powerful as the last racked his body. "What the Hell is going on?" he wondered.  
  
To Be Continued...  
  
*****  
  
(This is what happens when you write and don't think about what you are writing)  
  
Sort of an unintentional Omake  
  
His clothing fluttered around him as the energy built up into a loud moan of power that rebounded of the walls of the hole. The one remaining lens on his visor lights up, glowing just as brightly as the ball of energy does and displaying just how pissed off he is. "Actually I told you about the attack because I needed to distract you for a second."  
  
"VULCAN METAL PSYCHO WAVE!" Ranma screams as he thrusts his hands forward.  
  
Ryoko throws her hand forward and fires off her own blast. She gasps as she suddenly realizes that Ranma's blast dwarfs her by several orders of magnitude. His blast of energy seems to be spreading out from him instead of launching, slowly filling the hole with super condensed energy. She backs up a few yards to stay out of the way and notices that it's ripping a hole   
  
through the walls of the hole, widening them as it slowly moves forward.  
  
She turns to get out of the way and hears Ranma screaming on the other side of the blast. Then she notices that the surface of the energy is starting to boil, as if it was water. She vanishes just as it touches her. For a second she can feel all the cells in her body shift just a tiny bit and she screams in agony.  
  
Then she appears high above the hole, and watches as the blue energy launches forward, cutting a long crevice in the side of the mountain. She gapes in shock as the blast hits the horizon and keeps going for several seconds before it flickers and dies out.  
  
"What the &%$# was that?!" She screams.  
  
(Man, talk about Dragon Ball Z flashbacks :3) 


End file.
